Love Ridden
by Romie
Summary: SLASH. Harry notices Draco watching him, and starts to question his own biases
1. Love Ridden

Title: Love Ridden  
  
Author: Romie  
  
Archive: Anywhere.  I'd appreciate an e-mail so that I can visit your site.  
  
Rating: G, PG-13 for the series.  
  
Pairing: prelude to Harry/Draco  
  
Spoilers: None  
  
Disclaimers: not mine.  Rowling's.  And inspiration from the series came largely from Fiona Apple's album _When the Pawn_. That said, anybody's pretty much free to steal from anything I've done, as long is it generates something cool.  
  
Warnings: Although it does not appear in this particular chapter, this series features non-explicit SLASH (i.e. same-sex romantic interaction).  If this offends your particular moral sensibilities, then DON'T READ IT.  And if you feel like flaming me for that, please at least be original.  
  
Summary: contemplations.  Harry's POV.  
  
=====================================  
  
   
  
   
  
I've never told anyone that I'm claustrophobic.  Not even Ron or Hermione.  Sometimes, I jerk awake in the middle of the night, heart racing, certain that I'm still locked in the cupboard under the stairs.  I can't breathe until I push aside my bed curtains and reassure myself that I'm safe at Hogwarts.  Maybe it would be easier to just leave them open, but I don't want the questions.  I don't want Dean and Seamus to watch me toss and turn.  I don't want Neville to wonder why my nightshirt is drenched with sweat and sticking to my arms like a straightjacket.   
  
   
  
I think that part of me is still convinced, even after all these years, that someone - another Rita Skeeter - is going to find out that I'm not perfect, and then they'll all realize that they made a mistake.  I'm not "The Boy Who Lived".  I'm not special.  I just happened to get lucky. (If you can call losing both your parents lucky.)  I'll be shipped away while Dumbledore looks on in disappointment.  
  
   
  
Of course, I know that's not going to happen.  I belong here; I'm *happy* here.  Usually.  It's just hard to be rational at four in the morning.  Too early to wake up, too late to go back to sleep.  
  
   
  
I noticed Malfoy watching me today.  It was subtle, I'll grant you that; that's probably why I didn't see it until now.  It has to have been going on for a while - his technique is almost professional.  All I caught was a tiny flicker of half-lidded blue-gray eyes before he turned his gaze.  I doubt I would have seen even that much if he hadn't been distracted with thoughts of home.  
  
   
  
You see, last month, conclusive evidence was found to tie Lucius Malfoy to the Death Eaters.  Before the Aurors were able to apprehend him, he fled to join Voldemort somewhere in Ireland.  He couldn't possibly have disappeared that quickly unless he already had a plan in place; I imagine he intended for Draco to follow him, as Narcissa did a few days ago.  I don't know why he stayed.  
  
   
  
To tell the truth, it makes me uncomfortable that he did.  He's not supposed to be one of the good guys.  God, what a horrible thing to say; of *course* I'm glad that he didn't go over to Voldemort's side.  It's just . . . confusing.  I'm not used to thinking of him as a human being, I suppose.  He makes it easy not to, with his two dimensional façade.  
  
   
  
I guess that's what it is - a façade.  A pasteboard mask labeled "villain: hate me."  Actions carefully calculated to be cruel, with little motivation and even less sense.  Now that I think about it, I can't decipher any justifications for his day-to-day behavior beyond maintenance of that public image.  In a way, it's a measure of the spell he had us all under that I didn't question it until just now.  From almost the moment I met him, I wrote him off as just another bully, like Dudley or Piers.  
  
   
  
But Dudley would have run off to Voldemort almost as soon as he returned.  He would have jumped at the excuse to brutalize innocents, even if it meant he had to follow orders every once in a while.  Piers would have waited until Dudley left, but he would have followed quickly.  
  
   
  
What's keeping Malfoy here?  I'm sorry - I'm just so used to thinking of him as my enemy that I can't seem to shake it.  Ron suggested that maybe Voldemort wanted to keep a man on the inside, (although Ron said "You Know Who," of course; I wish I could cure him of that).  But it doesn't make sense.  Nobody trusts Malfoy enough to let him near anything dangerous; even the other Slytherins have withdrawn, afraid of guilt by association.  Both sides seem to view him as a liability.  Any time I see him now, he's alone, even in the middle of a crowd.  
  
   
  
Perhaps it's a trick.  If it is, it's a damn good one.  
  
   
  
I turn over and try to go back to sleep, even though the room is starting to lighten with the dawn.  But I can't lose the vision of those shuttered gray eyes. 


	2. Paper Bag

Title: Paper Bag  
  
Author: Romie  
  
Archive: Anywhere. I'd appreciate an e-mail so that I can visit your site if I haven't seen it yet.  
  
Rating: PG for disturbing thoughts  
  
Pairing: prelude to Harry/Draco  
  
Spoilers: None  
  
Disclaimers: not mine. Rowling's. That said, anybody's pretty much free to steal from anything I've done, as long is it generates something cool.  Also, this series was largely inspired by Fiona Apple's album, When the Pawn, which has also generated the titles so far.  
  
Warnings: This series features a same-sex, or slash, relationship.  If you find this sort of thing objectionable, then don't read it.  
  
Summary: contemplations. Draco's POV. Sequel to Love Ridden.  
  
=====================================  
  
   
  
   
  
My father says that I was born hungry.  I don't know how true that is; he was always prone to embellishment.  Despite what they'd tell you, (that mysterious, overbearing "They,") my father was not a liar - not exactly.  He simply ornamented the truth to make it more beautiful.  And who is to say that isn't a more perfect representation of reality?  My father was a poet.  His words were honest to the *present*, if not always solidly tied to facts of the past.  
  
   
  
(O God.  I've slipped into it.  I talk about him in past tense, as though he isn't still alive.  As if he isn't still my father.  It's easier to think that way.  It makes my actions feel like less of a betrayal when I don't think of him out there, waiting for me to join him.  With every passing moment that I don't show up, he feels a little more pain, a little more confusion.  Another twist of the stiletto lodged between his ribs.  He must know I'm still alive, still at Hogwarts.  He has to.  I'm certain at least four of my fellow students report back to the Dark Lord regularly, and those are only the ones I know about.  I wish I could give them a message for him, for my father, to explain a little.  On the other hand, there's nothing I can say - I wouldn't even know where to begin - so it's probably for the best that they won't talk to me any more.)  
  
   
  
My father says that I was born hungry.  I don't know how true that is, but I *do* know that my first memory is of trying to eat my mother's jewelry.  It sounds ridiculous now, but I was only two at the time.  She used to wear this huge ruby pendant my father gave her, as big as a crab apple.  I probably remember it as larger than it was - than it *is* - because I was so much smaller then.  (She doesn't wear it anymore - not that I've seen, at least.  She hasn't for years.  I wonder what happened to it.)  
  
   
  
I was fascinated by it.  She used to carry me around from room to room, and the ruby hung directly in my line of sight.  It was so beautiful, the color so deep and clear . . . like the most perfect fruit ever made.  So one day, while she was distracted, (talking with the house elves, I think,) I grabbed it and popped it into my mouth.  She fished it out almost immediately, and yelled at me for the first time in my young life.  I cried for hours, I think.  
  
   
  
She apologized immediately, concern writ large across her forehead.  Later that day, my father gave me a jewel of my own - a large, low-grade star sapphire.  I still use it as a paperweight.  When bedtime came, my mother read me books about geology, and I've been given gems on every birthday since then.  I have quite a collection at home, proudly displayed on my bedside table.  
  
   
  
I've never had the heart to tell them they missed the point.  I wasn't crying over the lost ruby; I was crying over lost illusion.  The ruby *looked* delicious, fire and blood in capsule form, but once I had it in my mouth, it was just a cold, inert stone.  When my mother pulled it out, it cut my tongue.  
  
   
  
My father says that I was born hungry.  I don't know how true that is, but he means it as a compliment.  To him, hunger is the same as drive.  It's a knowledge of my own entitlement, a ruthless calling to take what I need, regardless of what others think.  Hunger is empowerment and ambition.  He's proud of my hunger; it's what makes me his son.  
  
   
  
I wonder what he'd be so proud if he knew how I think about it.  If he knew of the constant gnawing loneliness.  The emptiness I carry in my belly where there should be stars.  I doubt he's ever considered what would happen if my hunger could not be sated.  (If he did, I imagine he thought of it as a positive - a push to perfection, a shove away from stagnation.)  My poor father.  It would never occur to him that there are some things that cannot be taken, only given.  
  
   
  
I've been watching Harry Potter for years now.  It started before I even knew who he was.  (That is, I *always* knew who Harry Potter was, but I didn't recognize him at Madam Malkin's robe shop.  After all, no one in the wizarding world had seen him for over ten years.)  Despite his beaten-up, oversized muggle clothes, ridiculous hair, and cello-taped glasses, it was obvious he came from a powerful wizarding family.  I was a bit thrown that I couldn't place him immediately; he exuded such *presence* so casually that I felt certain I would have remembered seeing him before, even as a face in the crowd.  (And the London wizarding world is considerably smaller than one might imagine.  Everybody meets everybody, eventually.)  
  
   
  
When I found out who he was, it made more sense.  He honestly doesn't see it.  He doesn't realize.  Harry doesn't realize.  He still thinks he's ordinary.  It's absurd.  As if to prove it, he deliberately surrounds himself with people who are beneath him.  (I'm not being cruel, merely pragmatic.  Without his friendship, Hermione Granger might still lead the class, but everyone would have stopped speaking to her long ago, (assuming they'd ever started).  Ron Weasley presents a bit more of an enigma; Potter's been too instrumental in shaping his personality.  It's impossible to say how he would have turned out otherwise.)  
  
   
  
I've had a lot of time to think about it, and I've decided that Harry needs the fiction.  He has to believe he's normal, or he runs the risk of realizing just how unusual he is, and the profound implications of that fact.  I suppose it could be a product of his childhood, but I believe his uniqueness is more inherent - an almost messianic mandate.  He could rule the world if he wanted to - wizard *or* muggle.  
  
   
  
Unfortunately, (or not,) as I've said, he needs to believe he's normal.  That means playing the underdog against some powerful, cultured archrival.  
  
   
  
Which is where I come in.  I started playing the part years before I understood what I was doing; I even acquired a matched pair of henchmen to flank me like bookends.  (They don't talk to me now, either.  Vince doesn't even go to school here anymore.  I don't usually miss them.)  You see, Voldemort wasn't good enough for Harry - he needed a more immediate rival.  I fit the bill.  I don't even remember choosing to be his enemy; I don't know why anyone would.  
  
   
  
The only explanation I can find is that he created me.  That powerful charisma grabbed hold of me and twisted, smashed me flat and deformed me until I became what he wanted.  The sort of clever villain you see in pantomimes, all black cape and oily mustache.  The brand that always loses to the Hero and slinks home, humiliated, to return with another scheme next week.  
  
   
  
We're all his puppets.  (I say that fondly, and with profound admiration.)  He wanted a rival, so he made me.  He wanted a best friend, so he made Weasley.  He wanted a brainy sidekick, so he made Granger.  We spin around his sun in elliptical orbits while he smiles and pretends he's not God.  
  
   
  
I'm both the luckiest and the unluckiest of the three.  I'm obviously the most underprivileged, but I'm also the only one without a blindfold.  As long as I act the part, I can think whatever I want.  He's done with me.  Granger and Weasley he tweaks every day - editing, refining, cultivating.  His eleven-year-old mind created *me* full blown, and then moved on.  
  
   
  
I'm seventeen and a half now.  He has yet to give me any depth, so I've had to create my own.  I can't let him see: I *mustn't*.  He's not ready to deal with what that means, with what it requires of him.  In all the ways that count, he's still a little boy.  If I ever told him . . . he wouldn't understand.  He'd believe he did, but he wouldn't really.  He'd choose not to.  It's easier that way.  Hate is always simpler than Love.  (How well I've come to understand that.)  
  
   
  
My father says I was born hungry.  I don't know how true that is, but I've forgotten what it feels like to be filled.  
  
   
  
Yesterday, I thought I saw a dove, but when I grabbed it, it was just a paper bag. 


	3. On the Bound

Title: On the Bound (Love Ridden 3)  
  
Author: Romie  
  
Archive:  anywhere.  In fact, I'd appreciate it.  Let me know if it's convenient.  
  
Rating:  PG  
  
Pairing:  prelude to Harry/Draco  
  
Spoliers:  none  
  
Disclaimers:  Rowling is God.  Fiona Apple deserves a nod too.  Anything I've made up, y'all are free to use.  
  
Warnings:  This series features a same-sex romantic pairing.  If you find that sort of thing objectionable, then don't read it.  
  
Summary:  Harry uses insight and logical thought to arrive at plausible and largely incorrect conclusions.  Not that Draco's are markedly more accurate.  
  
=============================================  
  
   
  
Witches and wizards have been persecuted in western society almost every time our existence has been revealed to muggles.  We're told about it over and over again every year, as if they're trying to drill the following facts into our head: you are not wanted.  The world does not like you.  
  
   
  
I know that they're trying to protect us.   Or at least they think they are; I say part of them is still working to justify our complete withdrawal during the seventeen hundreds.  It's been more than 300 years, but the guilt lives on.  So they remind us over and over again of the dark days, then worry at the perpetual flare-ups of violent anti-muggle sentiment.  
  
   
  
I know better than anyone what horrors the ignorant are capable of enacting.  For the first half of my life, I lived with some of the most bigoted, most insensitive muggles the world has to offer.  At the slightest suggestion of anything remotely off-colour - magical or otherwise - I was beaten and starved.  Humiliated when possible.  
  
   
  
But they're not all that way.  Hermione's parents, muggles both, are two of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet.  One of the highlights of 5th year was when Dean's father took several of us to a West Ham football game.  Seamus couldn't understand why there was only one ball, and Ron kept trying to get his hot dog to bark.  That was a great day.  
  
   
  
The Dursleys acted as they did because they were afraid.  I didn't realize that consciously until years after I left, although I'd been manipulating it since I first learned to speak.  Fear is an ugly thing; it turns all too quickly into righteously-justified hatred.  The sentiment that made the Dursleys created Voldemort too - anti-wizard and anti-muggle extremists both wave the same flag of systematic persecution.  I disagree with the way we're taught about either.  
  
   
  
Professor Binns' lecture today dealt with witch trials during the Spanish Inquisition.  I've heard it so many times that I had trouble paying attention - he does the same speech every year.  Most of us try to sleep through it, although Hermione takes notes each time just in case something's changed.  Instead, I found myself latching onto the concept of Faith.  I don't think I've ever trusted anyone, not completely.  I love my friends, of course, and I know they'd do anything I asked of them, but I can't shake the feeling that I'm the only one actively protecting my interests.  That is, I've never had the luxury of a higher power, be it God or parents, to tell me "don't worry; everything will be okay."  Not who I could believe, anyway.  
  
   
  
That sounds lonelier than it is; I'm really quite content with my lot.  I wouldn't choose dependence if it was offered me.  But it must be nice to have that cushion.  Malfoy's just lost his, I think.  It was pulled out from under him when his father left.  It must be strange to suddenly go from having a powerful, wealthy family to being an orphan with no allies.  At least I had Dumbledore, and later Sirius, to rescue me, and I didn't know what I'd lost until I'd regained it.  Malfoy's denied that providence.  
  
   
  
I watched him closely today, hoping for another slip, but I couldn't find a single chink in his armor.  He's perfect at what he does; I suppose he's had a lot of practice.  I could almost believe I'd imagined yesterday's shuttered glance if it hadn't affected me so profoundly.  It's become almost an obsession; I look down at my Arithmancy notes and find that I've doodled dozens of half-closed eyes.  Quiddich practice was called off after the third time I ran into a chaser.  
  
   
  
At lunch, I tried to talk to Ron and Hermione, but they were no help.  Ron called him a snake and a slimy cad, and volunteered to trounce him for me.  Hermione looked worried and asked if I really thought he was up to something.  
  
   
  
The truth is, I don't know.  I'm not used to wondering.  Strange as it seems, Malfoy has always been a bit of a constant in my life.  You can count on him to have some sinister plot going; he's almost reliable that way.  Why he does it has never been important, only that he continues to do so.  Who wonders why his heart beats until it stops?  
  
   
  
Ever since that Look, I've been trapped in a circle of whys.  Why is he staying at Hogwarts?  Why does he watch me?  Why is he so devoted to cruelty?  *Why can't I let it go?*  I'm tired of whys.  I'm choking on them.  I need some solid becauses, but they're proving as elusive as dircawls.  
  
   
  
Damnit, I never wanted to wonder about Malfoy's psychology.  I'm not supposed to care what he's thinking or whether he's happy.  That notion freezes me - he makes me as much of a fiend as he is.  Of *course* I should care.  I ought to be able to consider him in the same way I would Ron, or even Parvati - as a moderate, rational person who makes the choices he does for a *reason*.  
  
   
  
It's more difficult than I would ever have guessed.  I suppose my brain just isn't built that way; I'm having to construct new thought highways just to recall that he has a first name.  I'm no better than the Dursleys, who loathed me for being different from them.  To be fair, Draco's repeatedly proven himself far nastier than I ever was, although I admit I've said some pretty horrible things when Uncle Vernon's back was turned.  
  
   
  
But apparently I lied every time I said I'm not prejudiced.  Apparently, I hate Draco Malfoy.  Hate all Slytherins, actually, even though I eventually made my peace with Professor Snape.  And although it's since been justified, I have to acknowledge that I felt that way before I even entered the school - before I even knew who they were.  All too clearly, I remember my terror when the sorting hat nearly stuck me with them.  
  
   
  
I guess that should have been my first tip off.  I've been a fool for ignoring it so long.  The logic doesn't line up; why would the founders have created an "evil" house?  Imagine them sitting around and saying "hmmm, what are the four cardinal virtues?  There's intelligence, bravery, loyalty, and, oh yes, evil."  Would the hat have ever considered placing me in such a place?  
  
   
  
No!  The fourth virtue is craftiness, the origin of politics and technology.  Strategy.  Guile can sometimes accomplish things straightforward courage can't; for illustration, one has only to think of the Wronsky Feint, or Ron's and my Divination exams.  Perhaps more dark wizards have come out of Slytherin than any other house, but maybe that's because we expect it of them.  *I'd* certainly feel betrayed by the system if I thought that everyone looked on me with suspicion.  
  
   
  
I've been so blind.  All this time, Draco's been struggling to keep to the good, and we've all been shoving him back toward the dark as hard as we can.  No more.  It's time for a new reckoning, a clean slate.  It won't be easy; even if Draco is miraculously cooperative, (wishful thinking on my part,) there's still the other Gryffindors to deal with.  Hermione will listen to reason, but Ron'll probably try to examine me for head injuries.  Nevertheless, persistence will triumph in the end now that I know what to do.  
  
   
  
I gather up my Arithmancy notes and shove them in my satchel, but instead of following the rest of the class back to Gryffindor Tower, I head to the Dungeons. 


	4. Comfortably Numb

Title: Comfortably Numb (Love Ridden 4)  
  
Author: Romie  
  
Archive:  anywhere.  In fact, I'd appreciate it.  Let me know if it's convenient.  
  
Rating:  PG  
  
Pairing:  prelude to Harry/Draco  
  
Spoilers:  none  
  
Disclaimers:  Rowling is God.  Title is courtesy of Pink Floyd.  
  
Warnings:  This series contains elements of Slash, or same-sex relationships.  If you have a problem with that, don't read it; spend your time becoming more compassionate instead.  The world will thank you.  
  
Summary:  Draco takes a bath, then gets ambushed.  
  
=============================================  
  
   
  
Baths are inherently superior to showers.  Showers are tawdry, rushed affairs, built for efficiency, not luxury.  Jets of punishing water beat down on stooped shoulders, pummeling the muscles into submission.  The water is angry and agitated, furious at its exploitation into this unnatural form, this contrived rain.  As a philosopher and an avowed hedonist, I find the whole thing vaguely offensive.  
  
   
  
A bath, on the other hand, is an elaborate ritual, a solitary meditation planned and scheduled like any important religious event.  One sits in the porcelain tub, a sanctuary of sorts, and locks the rest of the world behind closed doors.  It's a time of complete vulnerability and total honesty; some would say self worship, but I find it equally humbling.  With the removal of clothes comes a stripping of pretence, of the armor we're forced to wear around observers.  They have no place here; the bath is a commune between me and the water.  
  
   
  
When I first came to Hogwarts, I thought I'd have to give them up.  Except for the prefects, we all use communal house showers - one for the boys, and one for the girls.  I was surprised when, just after the welcome feast, Snape himself showed me to a small one-person bathing room; he said he'd had it converted for me from an unused cupboard.  I don't know how he knew - perhaps my parents told him.  We never spoke of it again, but I will always be inexpressably grateful.  
  
   
  
Of course, I didn't use the room at first, choosing instead to suffer through the dreadful communal showers.  I was afraid the other students would mock me for my perceived weakness.  I was already the richest and one of the smallest; I could easily have become a laughingstock back then, (before I'd established my reputation).  One day, Blaise Zabini pulled me aside and told me everyone already knew, and I was a fool for not using what had been given me.  That conversation planted a seed of understanding that continues to grow even today.  
  
   
  
It's difficult to explain to outsiders, but Slytherins stick together as surely as any of the other houses.  Our alliance is not born of love, or friendship, or fear, but of understanding.  We all have our quirks; I take obsessively long baths, Blaise can't sleep without his stuffed rabbit, Pansy sucks her thumb when she's worried.  If we discovered these foibles in a member of another house, we'd exploit them to their fullest.  The difference is we all know enough to damn each other; if I were to betray any of them, they'd see to it I was screwed right back (and vice versa).  It forces an astonishingly peaceful truce.  
  
   
  
(This does not preclude a certain amount of teasing within the walls of the Dungeons.  Greg periodically sings a song of his own invention, entitled "Draco Transfigures Into a Prune."  It's surprisingly clever and undeniably catchy; I find myself humming the damn thing occasionally, to his express enjoyment.  He has an unusually good ear for a tune; I don't know why he never wrote anything else.  I haven't asked, and he hasn't offered.  Don't fear for my honor; I'll get him back with a dirty limerick about his hatred for mushy peas.)  
  
   
  
A bath is not about anything so provincial as cleanliness or sanitation.  It's the sensation of having time away from everyone else - a particularly rare commodity in a boarding school.  I like to stretch out on my back so that only my face stays above the tide line.  The water acts as an amplifier; I become entranced by the sound of my own breathing, of my heartbeat, of the blood spiraling through my capillaries.  (When I was younger, I believed the moat's merfolk were trying to contact me by banging on the pipes.  I must have spent months tapping back replies before I realized it was just the water valve clicking open and closed as toilets were used throughout the building.)  
  
   
  
One would think I'd get tired of being solitary now that hardly anyone speaks to me.  (Disowned by friends and enemies alike.)  Instead, my baths have become longer and longer.  There's a profound difference between being alone in a public space and being left to one's self; the latter implies a certain choice in the matter, while the former smacks of ostracism.  I'll recline against the porcelain, mind blank, until the water turns cold; then I'll pull the plug and run the hot water tap until the temperature is almost unpleasant.  
  
   
  
I'm not sure how long my current bath has lasted, but I've refilled the tub four times and the water is cold again.  It's been long enough, I suppose; there's Potions homework to be done.  Besides, my room should be empty now.  Vince is gone, and I heard Greg leave for his date with Pansy.  (She moved on *very* quickly once my family was implicated.  I understand, although I don't forgive; I might have done the same in her situation.  Our relationship, if it can be called that, was a show for the rest of the world.  She knows I'm gay, (all of Slytherin does.  I sometimes think they realized before I did.  It certainly provides an alternate explanation for why they never begrudged me my independent bathroom.)  Pansy didn't care; she just wanted my last name.  It's hardly as desirable now.)  
  
   
  
Nevertheless, pulling the plug feels like wrapping a noose around my neck.  I watch the water whirl down the drain; a part of me always goes with it.  When every vestige of liquid has disappeared and I'm shivering too badly to keep sitting here, I finally step out of the tub to dry myself.  
  
   
  
This is as much a ritual as the bath itself.  I disdain quick-dry spells in favor of a soft cream-colored towel which I run over each limb in turn, skimming off the water droplets slowly and thoroughly.  In my mind, it's not merely a towel, but a caress; this is the same towel my mother used on me when I was a small child.  If I breathe deeply enough, I can still smell her lavender perfume.  (Amazing; I suppose the same spell which keeps it from becoming threadbare locks in the fragrance.)  After I finish with this, I lightly towel my hair, then comb it back to air dry the rest of the way.  I wrap the cloth around my hips, gather my dirty robes, and pad down the corridor to my room.  
  
   
  
I am brought up short by the intrusive specter of Harry Potter.  He perches on my trunk like a king waiting to pass judgment.  The way the light hits his glasses prevents me from seeing his eyes; it's chilling, as though I'm a specimen in a petri dish.  (At first, I can't imagine how he got in here, but then I remember the invisibility cloak from my third-year visit to the Shrieking Shack.  He must've slipped in when Greg and Pansy left.)  
  
   
  
Before I can say anything, he launches into a speech that sounds rehearsed.  He forthrightly decrees that he wants to apologize for any past unpleasantness, and hopes it's not too late for us to become friends.  
  
   
  
He's shattering my bones with a sledgehammer, but he doesn't notice.  It should be obvious; I haven't spoken yet, just started at him.  In the normal run of things, I would have uttered at least two cutting remarks by now, and probably tossed him out.  He's so used to being the hero that it doesn't occur to him I'm the one being victimized.  He's invaded my private sanctum, the one place I shouldn't have to keep up appearances.  He's caught me at my most vulnerable, fresh from the bath and nearly naked.  I hold my bundle of robes before my body like a shield.  (I can't get dressed, because he's sitting on my clothes trunk and shows no sign of preparing to move.  I refuse to ask him; I shouldn't have to.)  
  
   
  
Obliviously, he plunges on with what he's convinced himself is *right*, ignoring the fact that he's ambushed me.  He believes what he's saying, but he doesn't really see me.  I'm a charity case, another mission.  Not a real person.  Have I finally fallen low enough to be incorporated into his entourage of failures?  God knows Harry loves to champion the underdog, and you can't get much more pitiful than a boy with no friends and no family.  I imagine he sees himself eight years ago.  
  
   
  
Leave me be, I whisper, but I don't think it makes it past my lips.  It certainly doesn't stem Harry's earnest flow of words.  I don't fit the "villain" niche anymore - no longer politically powerful enough - so he's trying to create a new slot for me: "converted ally."  Why can't he just let me be myself, free of categories?  I think he hopes reclassification will bury all his problems; if he can label me properly, I'm no longer dangerous.  He doesn't have to worry about the vagaries of complexity.  He can react to an archetype instead of an individual - confusing, confounding, unpredictable.  Personal.  
  
   
  
I wonder how he defines beauty, what kinds of art he likes.  Probably pen and ink, devoid of shading and color.  Clean two-dimensional depictions of a four-dimensional world.  I bet he thinks he's happy, or at least content.  Enlightened.  Self-actualized.  What will happen when he realizes?  Will his whole world fall apart, the ink drawings peeling away like rotten wallpaper?  
  
   
  
Finally, *finally*, he finishes his diatribe with a resolute invitation to go night flying sometime, just him and me.  When I don't respond, a flicker of worry passes across his forehead, (although maybe I just imagine it).  He vaults off my trunk and walks over to me.  I want to shrink until I can hide in the floor joins.  I want to diffuse into a colorless gas.  Instead, I force myself to stand perfectly still as Harry tentatively rests his fingers on my shoulder and peers down at me.  (We're normally of a height, but his sneakers give him a slight advantage over my bare feet.)  
  
   
  
Now I can see his eyes - shockingly, vibrantly green.  I've never been this close before; his pupils have tiny gold haloes around them.  Such stunning irises shouldn't be so cruelly hidden by glasses; if eyes are the windows to the soul, the heavy black frames are shutters.  I miss what he says; he looks a bit embarrassed.  I think he's asking if I'm all right.  It gradually dawns on me that I'm still frozen in the doorway, blocking his exit.  
  
   
  
I step aside, the shuffle of my feet assaulting my ears like a thunderclap.  I'm moving through molasses, swimming in mercury.  I'm surprised the air doesn't snap shut after me, rushing in with an audible pop to fill the space I've just vacated.  
  
   
  
With a bashful apology, Harry slips past me.  The air isn't as heavy for him as it is for me, or perhaps he's simply denser.  It wouldn't be difficult; I'm totally empty.  Hollowed out.  My shoulder is marked where he touched me, his signature scrolled in glittering turquoise.  I can't see it, but I know it's there; I can feel the tingle.  Wizards channel their magic through their hands; sometimes, they leave afterimages on what they touch.  
  
   
  
I stand there for what must be hours, afraid to move, afraid to break the spell. Eventually, Greg comes back.  He doesn't see the mark either, just asks why I'm not in bed.  He must be concerned; it's the first thing he's said to me in two days.  I manage to stumble to my bed and slip between the covers, forgetting homework, too exhausted to do anything more than drop towel and robes in a heap.  
  
   
  
I dream I'm trapped in a photograph, and the sun is slowly bleaching the color. 


	5. The Way Things Are

Title:  The Way Things Are (Love Ridden 5)  
  
Author: Romie  
  
Archive:  anywhere.  In fact, I'd appreciate it.  Let me know if it's  
  
convenient.  
  
Rating:  PG  
  
Pairing:  prelude to Harry/Draco  
  
Spoilers:  none  
  
Disclaimers:  Rowling is God.  Fiona Apple is my continuing inspiration.  There's also a Shakespeare reference.  
  
Warnings:  This series contains a same-sex romantic relationship; if you cannot accept that, then do not squander your time with reading any further.  
  
Summary:  Draco reconsiders past events in the light of the next  
  
morning.  
  
=============================================  
  
   
  
People think of me as cold.  I've never really understood what they mean by that.  How can I be cold when I'm so full of passion, of anger, of flame?  When I cry, my tears are as warm as theirs, as salty.  When I flush, my cheeks are as hot.  Take my temperature - it's the same as anyone else's.  
  
   
  
Maybe they confuse inaction with indifference.  It's not that I don't care - I *do*, deeply.  It's just I realized a long time ago I can't have what I want, so there's no point in getting worked up over it.  
  
   
  
I've had time to think about last night, and I'm ashamed of how I acted.  My only justification is that I wasn't prepared, but that's no excuse at all; I should never have let my armor down, never assumed I was safe.  The bath lulled me into a false sense of security, let me forget that every room is a battle ground.  It won't happen again.  
  
   
  
Now, in the clean light of morning, I can begin to evaluate what happened.  It's funny how living from moment to moment you don't see yourself change; it takes a mirror and a flash of clarity to show you how different you've become.  I hardly recognize myself, even allowing for distortions of reflection.  I've been accepting the other students' withdrawal from me, blaming it on outside circumstances, when it's *me* that shifted.  If they've forgotten me, it's because I *let* them.  
  
   
  
Harry thinks that because I've left Voldemort, I must have joined *him*.  Everyone does.  I could laugh at the wonder of it; it seems I'm the only one who sees shades of gray.  (Is that what makes me cold - the ability to think outside dichotomy?  Perhaps if I was "hot" I would choose an extreme and pour my blood into it until I had nothing left to keep my heart beating.)  He should know better; we can Never be on the same side.  Only the weak take a side other than their own, people too stupid to lead instead of follow.  My independence keeps me perceptive.  
  
   
  
I refuse to become someone's symbol, some twisted ideal of a "love conquers all" happy ending.  Nor will I quietly disappear, (as I have been doing,) unnoticed casualty of a phoney war.  If they want to crush me they'll have to do it with mailed fist, not casual inattention.  
  
   
  
Harry supposes I'm like him.  It's almost sweet, like shredded orange rind.  I think it's time he learns how crazy I am, how savage.  Just because I've been curled up in his palm doesn't mean I've forgotten how to scratch and bite, tear and maim.  (I don't want to hurt him.  Never hurt him.  Which is why I have to do this - he's gotten complacent.  Anyone could attack him now, and he wouldn't be ready.  He thinks he has nothing left to lose, but he makes himself weaker with each new ally.)  I'm starving for a fight, and I will not let him win; I will not rest 'til I've disproved his faith in men.  
  
   
  
By the end of today, people won't avoid me because of my father.  They'll fear me in my own right. 


	6. I Know

Title:  I Know (Love Ridden 6)  
  
Author: Romie  
  
Archive:  anywhere.  In fact, I'd appreciate it.  Let me know if it's  
  
convenient.  
  
Rating:  PG  
  
Pairing:  prelude to Harry/Draco  
  
Spoilers:  none  
  
Disclaimers:  Rowling is God.  Fiona Apple is my continuing inspiration - in a way, these are my version of the songfic.  
  
Warnings:  This series contains a non-explicit consensual same-sex relationship.  If you're the sort of person who dislikes that, then bugger off.  (And yes, I realize the irony of using that particular phrase.)  
  
Summary:  Harry watches as Draco tries to destroy himself.  
  
Feedback:  is the most addictive drug there is.  I crave it, both on  
  
and off list.  
  
=============================================  
  
   
  
A man is not a fool for making a mistake, but for failing to admit it.  Dumbledore told me that the last time I got in trouble.  It was a stupid infraction: I'd snuck out after dark to rendezvous with a girl I was seeing.  I thought I was in love with her, even though we hardly knew each other.  It's painfully embarrassing to remember the impassioned arguments I made when apprehended; this love was Meant to Be and nothing as arbitrary as school curfews could stop it.  It was a romance for the ages.  
  
   
  
The relationship fell apart a week later, and I realized that Dumbledore's advice had not been about the rule breaking.  
  
   
  
I thought that I didn't get through to Draco last night because he was locking me out.  He was - he is - but I should have known better than to think that Draco would let anything be that simple.  This is a boy whose *socks* are probably starched and embroidered; you can't expect a person like that to have straightforward emotions.  
  
   
  
Nevertheless, you can sympathize with my error.  I can't dislodge the image of Draco staring me down from the doorway, jaw locked and eyes flashing.  (I envy his ability to look commanding in even a towel.  I can put on dress robes and uncomfortable shoes, and I still look like a little boy.  It has its advantages, but I suspect it stops people from taking me seriously.)  
  
   
  
After the unsuccessful attempt to mend the rift and offer Draco my friendship, I beat a hasty retreat to the Gryffindor common room.  Hermione looked upset and demanded to know where I'd been; Ron wanted to know who the girl was.  It hadn't occurred to me until then that I'd been missing for several hours.  Waiting for Draco hadn't seemed long at all; I'd been too busy dreading the confrontation and trying to think of something to say.  It's almost a good thing he didn't utter a word - one hello, and I might have crumbled.  
  
   
  
For some reason, I didn't tell my friends about my overtures to Draco.  Still haven't, and it's a night and half a day later.  I really should - this whole thing would be much easier with their help, (or at least without their interference).  But there's something in me which resists making this public; I guess I want to make sure this connection happens between Harry and Draco, not Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, Bitter Enemies Reunited as Friends.  I can see the headlines now, and I'm a little sickened by the idea of the whole thing turning political.  It's bound to, but I want to hold it off for as long as possible.  Not that I can't trust Ron and Hermione. . . Fuck.  I'm not used to having secrets - not this kind.  I don't know how they work.  
  
   
  
Anyway, I mumbled something about losing track of time while studying in the library.  Hermione perked up immediately and launched into a spirited dissertation on the unusual variations found in the wizard version of the Dewey decimal system.  (Ron looked rather disappointed, though; I sometimes think he lives vicariously through my love life.  It's not that he isn't positively moony over Hermione, but he shares his brothers' love for conquest and adventure.)  
  
   
  
That night, I slept better than I had in a week.  My duty was acquitted; my conscience was clear, despite the niggling lie I'd told my best friends.  I awoke this morning completely free from visions of sugar-blond hair and storm-chased eyes; I even whistled on the way to breakfast.  (Ron hopefully asked me if I was *sure* I wasn't dating anyone.  I don't think I ever got around to answering him; I was too busy roaring with laughter.  He may be miffed at me, actually.  I should really tell him what's going on.)  
  
   
  
The meal was uneventful - toast and orange marmalade - until Draco entered, proud and aloof.  He stalked over to the Gryffindor table, upended several soup tureens, and emptied a pitcher of syrup on Ginny's hair, staring at me the whole time.  The entire hall went silent, except for the sound of Ron's chair scraping the stone floor as he prepared to launch himself at The Enemy.  I stopped him with a touch to his knee, needing him to stay out of this even as Draco struggled to bring the rest of Gryffindor into it.  (I really should tell Ron what's going on; he must be dreadfully confused.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his face go purple.)  
  
   
  
Never breaking eye contact with Draco, I *willed* the rest of the table to stay calm.  Somehow, that worked; I guess something in my body language warned them not to riot.  Or maybe they were just waiting for me to give the signal so they could storm him en masse.  I'm not really sure.  The important thing is that they *didn't*, even when Ginny ran out in tears.  Draco had his quiet captive audience, at least for the time being.  Evenly, utterly relaxed, I asked Draco what he wanted.  
  
   
  
The floodgates were opened.  With a haughty sneer, a smile's caricature, Draco enumerated exactly what he'd like to do to each and every Gryffindor - individually, and in explicit anatomical detail.  I won't bore you with a recitation of the threats; I'm not sure all of them are even physically possible, although magic can accomplish some surprising things.  Even though the taunts applied to dozens of different students, he spoke as if I was the only one in the room - in the world.  (Perhaps *that's* why no one intruded; Draco made it clear that this was *our* battle.)  
  
   
  
I just sat back and watched him fume.  He needed to put on his show, and I let him.  I understand; he's not ready to let go yet.  I'll pretend that I don't know, that I didn't see it, until he gets to a point where he can tell me.  At least I will if I can be that patient - not traditionally my strongest suit.  
  
   
  
But I'm getting ahead of myself.  You see, while Draco was ranting, I found the slip I was waiting for, the vital clue.  Watching his flushed face and his jabbing gesticulations, the missing puzzle piece slipped into place.  It's so obvious once you see it, like dismantling a Rubik's cube.  
  
   
  
Draco doesn't want to be my friend; he wants to be my lover.  
  
   
  
Fortunately, before he could finish, Professor McGonagall hauled him off to the headmaster's office.  (I say "fortunately" because I suspect he would have been lynched as soon as the others' shock wore off.)  McGonagall looked worried, and a little frightened, but relieved at the same time.  I think the teachers have been waiting for Draco to snap since his father left.  She probably counts herself lucky that he didn't kill someone.  
  
   
  
It's rather funny that the only casualties of Draco's "big explosion" were Ginny's hair and some cream of mushroom soup.  It confirms my belief that he's not that horrible after all; this was a *performance*, not an attempt to hurt anyone.  He probably doesn't see it that way - I'm sure he'd be offended if I said anything.  I imagine he likes to think of himself as thoroughly wicked.  
  
   
  
The other Gryffindor students aren't terribly inclined to see my point of view, either; as soon as Draco left, the silence turned to uproar.  Everyone traded stories of Malfoy humiliation and degradation, while Ron and Seamus advocated a return to the days of vigilante justice.  This lead to elaborate fantasies of what Draco should be made to do under the Imperious Curse.  Even Neville got in on the action with a stirring retelling of that potions incident in which Draco accidentally turned himself blue.  
  
   
  
After things calmed down a bit, Ron began informing anyone who'd listen that Draco is a criminal mastermind and his actions are part of a larger and more sinister plot which we must foil at all costs.  I replied that since that was obviously what Draco wanted us to believe, Ron was playing right into his hands.  He fumed at the inescapable logic trap, and asked me whose side I was on, anyway.  (I should *really* tell him what's going on.)  
  
   
  
Can something be called a mistake if you do it on purpose, fully cognizant of the consequences?  I think I'm about to do something foolish; I have that familiar bubble at the base of my spine, impelling me toward the path least traveled.  Is the risk worth it?  I could lose everything and gain nothing in return.  
  
   
  
Already, I know there's not a decision left to be made.  I *will* do this thing.  Why?  I'm not sure.  Maybe because it's there.  That sounds like a weak justification, but would "it just feels right" be any better?  Like any true Gryffindor, I have a reckless gambling streak which I disguise as intuition.  
  
   
  
This is ridiculous; I don't even know what it is I'm talking about *doing*.  I just know that this new understanding of Draco changes *everything*.  It eats away at the base of my existence.  Never again will I be able to exchange insults without wondering whether it's all just sexual tension.  I won't be able to walk past him in the hall without checking to insure that my walk isn't somehow seductive.  No simple touch, no simple look, will ever be simple again.  
  
   
  
Is this what he had to deal with all these years?  Constantly wondering, layering every comment with layers of meaning?  Dissecting the possible motivations behind a head toss, or a raised eyebrow?  How did he stop from going mad?  How did he hide it?  
  
   
  
More than ever, I need him as a friend.  Funny - I hadn't realized until now that I *do* need him; I had thought I was doing this all for him.  I suppose we're all selfish at heart.  
  
   
  
Ron will say that this is a mistake.  But we only call them mistakes if they fail. 


	7. Jewel Box

Title:   Jewel Box (Love Ridden 7)  
  
Author: Romie  
  
Archive:  anywhere.  In fact, I'd appreciate it.  Let me know if it's  
  
convenient.  
  
Rating:  G  
  
Pairing:  prelude to Harry/Draco  
  
Spoilers:  none  
  
Disclaimers:  Rowling is God.  
  
Warning: This series contains a consensual, non-explicit, same-sex relationship.  Don't read it if you can't handle it.  
  
Summary:  Draco contemplates his incarceration.  
  
=============================================  
  
   
  
I've always been a Slytherin.  Even before I came to Hogwarts.  My father was a Slytherin; so was his father, and *his* father.  It's said among our family that Salazar's first pupil was a Malfoy; it might even be true.  There's certainly a serpent on the family crest that can't be explained in any better way.  
  
   
  
They've taken me out of Slytherin.  Dumbledore and the others.  I don't think they're allowed to *do* that, but I've no one to complain to.  (It's not as though I can owl my parents.)  Even Snape agreed with them.  Said he didn't want to penalize the whole house for my actions.  I argued that this was a disgraceful violation of rules and tradition, but McGonagall, (sour old maid,) said that since I'd never had much regard for either, there was no reason to start now.  
  
   
  
Not only have they removed me from my house, from my *home*, but they refuse to give me another.  Not outright expulsion - that would be too simple.  Instead, they've cleared out an unoccupied room in the teachers' wing and worked out a schedule to give me individual lessons, separate from the other students'.  I guess they're afraid I'll infect the rest of the school, wickedness carried on my breath like bacteria.  
  
   
  
I know the truth.  They don't want me, but since my parents are gone, they can't get rid of me without a scandal.  So they're herding me toward graduation, the marathon's finish line - after that, I'll be on my own, their legal and moral obligations discharged.  They'll be able to sleep soundly at night, assured they Did The Right Thing, even if I'm diseased, hungry, homeless.  Because, you see, it'll be my own damn fault for squandering the resources they've given me.  
  
   
  
For now, it's theirs.  Their responsibility.  Their job to worry about me whether they want to or not.  They have to teach me; they have to feed me; they have to act as though they care.  It's that simple.  And I don't get any say in it.  I'm their prisoner.  (Dumbledore tried to tell me this is for my protection.  As though that makes it any better.  I think he's been planning it for a while, just waiting for an excuse - can't let me fall into the hands of the Dark Lord, after all.  He might be able to *corrupt* me somehow; poor innocent Draco.)  
  
   
  
I'll act as though I haven't noticed, as though I'm *happy*.  (At least I'll annoy the hell out of McGonagall that way.)  I'll pretend this is a reward.  Imagine: I get my own room.  No one else has that privilege, barring the head boy and girl.  Moreover, I get private tutors, the best in the world.  I am a prince of Hogwarts.  
  
   
  
It's very lonely.  I'm a jewel box figurine; I twirl while the lid is open, but spend most of my time locked away in the dark.  
  
   
  
At least I don't have to face Harry any time soon.  Frankly, I don't have the energy.  I don't even want remember the way he just . . . looked at me.  As though I was his pet, his amusement for the day.  His project.  I insulted his friends, and he *smiled*.  Green eyes like cameras, recording my outburst for later analysis.  
  
   
  
This must be his dream come true.  My sequestering.  Oh, he'll be sad for a while - they've taken away his toy, after all.  But he'll find something new and shiny to play with, and forget all about that.  Instead, he'll remember that old rival, that bad seed, who got what he deserved in the end.  It'll confirm his faith in Karma.  Good people get rewarded, bad people get punished.  Moreover, it'll be a weight off his shoulders; he doesn't have to worry any more about doing the noble, civilized, *Gryffindor* thing.  
  
   
  
Good for him.  I hope he's smart enough to enjoy his freedom, although I doubt he will be.  He'll probably just replace me - maybe he'll try to reform Goyle.  *There's* an amusing image.  Wish I was around to see it. . . But I suppose that's the point, isn't it?  I'm not.  
  
   
  
I don't have any classes today; they haven't finalized the schedule yet.  I'm eating alone in my room; the house elves have been instructed to bring me whatever I want.  As if that makes up for the fact they've put a monitoring spell on the door so  I can't leave without their knowledge.  
  
   
  
I wonder what they'd do if I killed myself.  That'd put a crimp in all their lovely plans, wouldn't it?  They'd never forgive themselves.  It'd be so easy. . . I know how to do it with no pain, no deformation.  What's the saying?  Die young and leave a beautiful corpse?   
  
   
  
I'll never actually do it, though.  Too stubborn.  Pity.  They'd deserve it.  
  
   
  
So.  Hours and hours of free time while the others are in class.  Maybe I'll ask for some library books on disturbing subjects.  The elves are sure to report back to Dumbledore; it'd worry him terribly if I developed a sudden interest in, say, psychic vampirism.  Give him another wrinkle in his forehead.  No, wait - he'd probably want to *talk* to me.  *Counsel* me.  See if I'm *okay*.  Scratch that idea.  
  
   
  
Damn.  There's *really* nothing to do.  How do I usually entertain myself?  I can't remember now.  Obsessing over Harry must take up more of my time than I'd realized.  
  
   
  
I finish my meal, and find a pack of cards.  Solitaire.  Appropriate name.  
  
   
  
I miss my mother.  Every summer, we'd get season tickets for the symphony.  (I wonder if she remembered to cancel the subscription before she left to join my father.  She always did forget things like that.  One winter, we returned from a week's holiday in Greece to find the house elves chopping up the neighbors' trees for firewood.  My mother had remembered to turn off the house's heating spells, but failed to dismiss the help.  It's not that she's stupid; she just lives in the *future* and doesn't think to check on the mundane, the routine.)  
  
   
  
We'd arrive an hour early to take tea and sandwiches in the cafe across from the concert hall.  She always made certain to find us a seat by the window, from whence we could watch the people hurry past.  As a game, we'd assume they were all musicians and guess at their instruments.  (I don't think we ever guessed each other, but she'd be the glockenspiel: silver, sparkling, transcendent.  Bell-like.)  
  
   
  
Dumbledore would be a bassoon: quirky and unusual, with a strange enough sense of humor to make even casual exchanges unpredictable.  I've never been able to tell whether his nonsense means he's brilliant or just senile.  Perhaps he doesn't know himself.  
  
   
  
Snape's a violin: mournful, snobbish, controlled.  I can picture him swaying in an alleyway in Dickens' London, bowing castles in the air.  Tin cup at his feet collecting more snow than coins.  He'd starve to death before he sold his beloved instrument.  Yes.  A violin.  
  
   
  
Harry's harder to place.  Some days, I think he's a French horn; others, a jazz clarinet.  Whenever I think I've decided definitively, he does something to make me question it again.  He's a difficult person to nail down, "straightforward" as he purports to be.    Even if I had a lifetime, I'm not sure that I'd ever understand him entirely.  
  
   
  
I sigh and put the cards away.  This is disgusting.  It's only been five minutes, and I'm back to thinking about Harry.  Worse, the card game took no time at all; at this rate, I'll die of old age before today's end.  There *has* to be something better to do with this era of solitude.  
  
   
  
Maybe. . . Maybe I could learn to play music.  Develop a skill that has nothing to do with magic, with this family, with this school.  A talent that's mine alone, that I don't ever have to share with anyone else if I don't want to.  I certainly have the time and the privacy.  And it'll help keep my mind off things I can't have.  
  
   
  
Fighting back excitement, determined to look stern and inscrutable, I call for a house elf and ask her to bring me an instrument.  She looks puzzled; she wants more specific instructions.  But who could choose?  Out of all of the timbres, which one is the best?  An instrument should pick *you* - it should be fated, obvious.  She should know without my telling her.  Finally, I send her scurrying off, to find what she can.  
  
   
  
I *will* beat this imprisonment.  And by the time I get out, by the time I graduate, I will have the ability to create beauty. 


	8. To Your Love

Title:  To Your Love(Love Ridden 8)  
  
Author: Romie  
  
Archive:  anywhere.  In fact, I'd appreciate it.  Let me know if it's  
  
convenient.  
  
Rating:  PG  
  
Pairing:  prelude to Harry/Draco  
  
Spoilers:  none  
  
Disclaimers:  Rowling is God.  Title courtesy of Fiona Apple.  
  
Warnings:  Features a non-explicit same-sex romantic pairing.  Bigots beware.  
  
Summary:  Harry ruminates.  There's another version of this scene out  
  
there, but it's not the official one because I didn't like it - it  
  
was out of character.  
  
Feedback:  is a thing most devoutly to be wished.  
  
Notes: This ep's a bit interesting, because there are two totally different versions out there.  The original I *hated* and rewrote immediately after posting - although it had some nice moments, it wasn't true to the characters at all.  If I remember correctly, I ordered everyone to forget that it had ever existed and threatened to garrote anyone who brought it up again.  This version is better.  
  
=============================================  
  
   
  
I'm tired of being Harry Potter.  I know that's an unworthy, ungrateful thought - my parents died for me.  Sirius risked his life for me; so did Dumbledore, and Hagrid, and Professor Lupin.  Being born Harry Potter insured an advantage in the wizarding world shared by few others; my introduction guarantees a second look, a deeper consideration.  Even if people don't like me, they automatically respect me.  I imagine I could get a high-paying job on the weight of my scar alone.  
  
   
  
I hate it.  Well, not usually.  I don't ordinarily think about it, and it's certainly better than life with the Dursleys.  But sometimes I feel as though my smallest action is sifted and analyzed by Colin Creevy and others like him, my briefest glance the grist for gossip mills everywhere.  That's probably not true; I *couldn't* be that important.  It just seems that way.  
  
   
  
As you can tell, it's one in the morning again, and I'm awake alone.  That's the only time I get this maudlin, when there's no one up to snap me out of it.  My ruminations are ridiculous; do I really think Colin sees me that way, or Seamus?  Or Dean?  I'm an arrogant son of a bitch if I believe that I'm better than they are.  
  
   
  
I'm just edgy about Draco Malfoy.  He wants to be my lover, even if he's unable to ask me straight out; it's *obvious* once you look for it.  And it is *me* he's interested in, not the reputation.  He has one of his own, after all, especially in light of the furor over his refusal to join Voldemort.  No, he wants me on an individual, visceral level.  It's a powerful feeling, a riptide of the senses.  
  
   
  
I wish I could give him the same courtesy - view him independently of name and circumstance.  I *want* to; it would make everything so much simpler.  But this is a case where my fame definitely works against me.  Say I was to pursue a relationship with him.  A physical one.  I'd be a fool if I thought it wouldn't make the news somewhere, and when it did, it would be embraced by the gay community.  I'd become a symbol, (the thing I'm trying to escape in the first place,) an ambassador for same-sex unions.  If we ever fought, (which we would - this is *us*,) it would be a disappointment to all the homosexual couples who *don't*, and could even be used against them.  If the relationship ended, (could it ever hold up under all that pressure?) I'd have to follow Draco with another man, or else no one at all.  
  
   
  
Let me clarify; it's almost mathematical in its simplicity.  If the relationship after Draco were with a woman, it would invalidate what came before.  It would make Draco a mistake, gay relationships a mistake, non- standard partnerships a mistake.  I don't even know whether I like guys!  But I don't have the luxury to experiment in a "safe" environment - I'm too well known, too public.  I know that Hogwarts is considered a haven but I'm not so naive to think the rest of the world is this accepting, and graduation is approaching fast.  Anything I choose to do now irrevocably sets a course I may not want to follow.  
  
   
  
All this assumes I can even get Draco to acknowledge his feelings.  He might not.  I don't know if he's ever thought of men that way, consciously; until recently, he was dating Pansy Parkinson.  Of course, I have the feeling he's considered it, considered *me*, but that could be my arrogance talking again.  I have to watch that.  Perhaps the glance I caught was a fluke, the shouting match this morning motivated by hatred instead of desire.  Maybe I'm only seeing what I want to.  
  
   
  
Sobering as that thought is, it makes one thing abundantly clear: that *is* what I want to see.  I want Draco to want me.  I want to think he dreams of me when I'm not there  and ardently hopes I'll return his feelings.  Because if it truly is hate . . . what a waste.  And how crushing to throw my world into this upheaval for *nothing*.  
  
   
  
Do I want him?  I don't know; I haven't allowed myself to consider it yet.  How absurd - it would seem to be the crux of the matter, and I've completely avoided it.  Am I truly preoccupied, or just afraid of what I might find?  Being loved by *anyone* is enough to make you regard them favorably.  As if that weren't enough, it's easy to become infatuated with the idea of bedding my rival.  What if that's all this is?  A passing fancy?  It would be so cruel to have him, to embrace him, and then to decide it wasn't real.  Where would that leave him?  
  
   
  
Would it be more acceptable if it were a secret?  Could I love him and not tell anyone, or would it look as though I was ashamed?  I *hate* the idea of having him only in private, but I don't know whether it's because I want him in my life or I want a conquest.  Nasty idea, but this might be an issue of *winning*, of showing the world and Hogwarts that I came out on top in more ways than one.  
  
   
  
Do I love him?  Do I even know him well enough to make that distinction?  Until yesterday, he was a characterless enemy, indistinguishable from any masquerade devil.  (Is it possible that only two days have passed?)  I've reached a new paradigm, but I haven't had a chance to explore it yet.  Moreover, I have no one to talk to, and my one source, Draco, is *totally* unreliable.  I'm skating on deduction and intuition, and the ice is thin.  
  
   
  
My thoughts are running in circles.  I'm more awake now than I was twenty minutes ago, and I'm never going to get anywhere without more information.  Suddenly, I can't stand being in bed, being closed up in this tiny space, bound down by linen sheets.  Even though it's forbidden, I *have* to leave the room, the tower, and go wandering.  Since my mind can't seem to travel, my feet must. 


	9. Fast As You Can

Title:  Fast As You Can (Love Ridden 9)  
  
Author: Romie  
  
Archive:  anywhere.  In fact, I'd appreciate it.  Let me know if it's  
  
convenient.  
  
Rating:  PG-13  
  
Pairing:  prelude to Harry/Draco  
  
Spoilers:  none  
  
Disclaimers:  Rowling is God.  Fiona Apple is my continuing inspiration - in a way, these are my version of the songfic.  
  
Warnings:  This series features a same-sex romantic pairing.  Leave if this offends you.  
  
Summary:  Draco works at becoming a musician.  
  
=============================================  
  
   
  
Orchestral strings are the most difficult instruments to play.  Unlike woodwinds, brass, or percussion, the pitches are indefinite; a movement of a millimeter, and you're playing a different note entirely, one which may or may not exist in standard notation.  For this reason, it is said that there are only two types of string player: ingenious and atrocious.  Achieving virtuosity can be the work of a lifetime.  
  
   
  
That same flexibility is what makes strings the most human of the instruments.  They can play *any* pitch, mimic *any* sound, including the human voice.  The musician has infinite discretion for each and every note.  Take middle G, for example.  First, I have to pick a system of tuning - although it's relatively standard throughout Europe, the Americans play a few Hertz lower.  Then I have to choose which of four strings to play it on, and shift my left hand accordingly.  I have to decide which finger to use, then depress the selected string at precisely the right place, with a perfect sensitivity to harmonics and timbre.  Next, I have to pick a bowing pattern for the right hand, along with dynamics and tempo, and apply it with the correct speed and pressure.  All of these mechanics will eventually become instinct, but they vary with the conditions; I will never be able to pick up someone else's instrument and play a perfect concerto.  It'll take time to understand it first, to inhabit the grain of the wood and the warps in the bridge.  
  
   
  
I've been practicing for six hours, and I can almost, (but not quite,) play a major scale if I go very slowly.  The fingertips of my left hand should be raw by now, but I devised a spell to give them protective calluses.  It's cheating, I know, but there'll be time to build real ones later.  As I retune a string that's come a bit loose, I feel an insistent pricking across my shoulder blades, like tiny pixies dancing over my back.  Someone's watching me.  I lift my head, wincing as I stretch protesting neck muscles, and stare at Harry Potter.  He seems to have developed an alarming tendency to break into my room unannounced; he's lounging in my doorway, (which I don't remember leaving open or even unlocked,) in blue and white striped pajamas.  
  
   
  
"Violin?" he queries with a half smile and a raised eyebrow, as though there's nothing unusual about his behavior.  I shake my head dazedly, trying to clear it, attempting to pass the gesture off as a response.  
  
   
  
"No.  Viola."  I hold out the instrument for him.  "See, it's wider in the body, and the tone color's a bit darker.  More mysterious than the violin, but more portable than the cello.  Sorely underused by most composers, despite its prevalence."  Harry nods, inscrutable.  I don't know whether he's acknowledging my statement or agreeing with it; I don't even know whether he understands anything about music.  From what I've heard, the muggles who raised him had no culture; it's somewhat amazing that he has manners at all.  That said, he *has* entered my room without asking, or even knocking.  I clear my throat, remembering my position.  
  
   
  
"What are you doing here," I ask, struggling to exude imperiousness from every pore.  It rolls right off him, like a raindrop on a mermaid.  He shrugs.  
  
   
  
"Couldn't sleep," he says, absentmindedly tugging at one of his pajama sleeves.  "I'm a bit of an insomniac, you see.  I didn't want to wake Ron and the others, so I went for a walk.  I heard you practicing, and thought maybe you could use some company.  I can go if you'd like."  He half-turns nervously, as if to leave.  His cheeks are flushed a bit pink, or maybe it's just the light.  He could be lying about why he's here, what he's doing.  It's a little too convenient that aimless wandering brought him to this wing, this hallway, this door.  Yet somehow, I know he's telling the truth, or what he believes to be truth.  He really is that honest, that innocent, that considerate.  It would never occur to him to be anything else in this situation.  
  
   
  
It would be so easy to tell him no, I don't want you here, I'm busy.  I wonder how many have; I imagine the number is very small.  He'd take it stoically, a court-martialed captain, and retreat.  Perhaps he'd send licorice whips the next day to prove there were no hard feelings.  
  
   
  
I open my mouth and invite him to stay.  There'll be time to analyze it later, to curse myself for my foolishness.  For now, all I know is that I'm lonely and his glow fills the room with firelight.  
  
   
  
He is grateful, but off balance.  Now that he's in, he doesn't know what to do with himself, so he just stands there, a few paces away from me.  He keeps trying to put his hands in his pockets, forgetting that his pajama bottoms don't have any.  I've never seen him this flustered, this lost.  He is a child in a fairy circle, blinking at lights he can't explain and only half believes in.  The kind thing would be to give him a chair and maybe something to eat - something concrete to hold on to before he flies off the spinning wheel.  But I'm cruel enough to enjoy my power, to revel in having *him* uncertain for a change.  Never mind that my equilibrium's just as skewed.  
  
   
  
I drink in his tension, nervous energy arcing off him like ball lightning.  The ever-confident Harry Potter has his eyes locked on his bare feet while he fidgets apoplectically - fingering buttons, picking at seams, tapping at flagstones.  When he reaches up to run his hand through his hair, his sleeve falls down around his elbow, revealing a pale forearm spiderwebbed with spiraling black lines.  
  
   
  
"What's that," I ask, unable to speak above a whisper.  Silence has enveloped us, a thick woolen blanket woven on Penelope's loom.  Harry feels it too; he startles at the sound of my voice, quickly dropping his hand.  It feels as though he barely restrained himself from jumping; his eyes are wide behind his glasses.  
  
   
  
"Wha-" he rasps, voice rough and throaty, deeper than I've ever heard it.  He clears his throat and tries again.  "I beg your pardon?"  He is utterly confused, hopelessly clueless; he's not sure where he is, what he's doing here.  It's the same look I saw when I transfigured my pencil box into a meerkat; the poor fellow looked around in utter bewilderment, trying to figure out why he was alive in a classroom instead of running across the savanna.  
  
   
  
I imagine the air is full of a deep blue smoke which we breathe with each inhalation.  It's as heady as any drug I've encountered, twining 'round my reptile brain, wrapping my cerebellum in gauze.  I drift in its paralyzing embrace, a voyeur in my own head; at the same time, all my senses are shaper, electric.  I can hear my eyelids as they glide across my eyeballs, count every one of Harry's eyelashes, taste the elderberry tip of his tongue as he runs it across his lower lip.  With a powerful effort of will, I raise my bow to gesture at Harry's sleeve.  
  
   
  
Flushing a deep rose, he pushes it back up.  "I like to draw," he mumbles, still not meeting my eyes, "and I ran out of paper."  No, you didn't, I think, but I refrain from saying so.  I was right in guessing Harry was a pen-and-ink sort of person, but wrong to think it two dimensional.  He likes his work to move, to live, to twist and jump as he shifts position.  Skin is his favorite medium, the ink burning into it like acid, welling up like blood.  He's ashamed of the mutilation, even though it washes off with soap and water, and so he's never shown anyone.  There's no need to; it's easily hidden behind long sleeves and dark robes.  Somehow, I know this without his telling me, the intimate knowledge hotwired from his mind to mine.  
  
   
  
"What are you doing here," I ask a second time.  He doesn't answer, preferring to remove his spectacles and swab them with the edge of his shirt.  It's a remarkably disarming gesture, the removal of an artificial barrier, and I want nothing more than to embrace this perfect boy, this beautiful man.  My enemy.  I want to kiss each of his ragged fingernails and make him egg sandwiches with no crusts and tell him stories of wandering shepherds.  I want to protect him, which is *incredibly* stupid, because he's been ably fending off dark wizards since birth; and I want to kill him before he ever finds out I feel that way.  
  
   
  
I may be a master of delusion, but I know that we are not meant to be together.  Even if I could fool him into loving me, the universe would conspire to rip us to shreds.  We can't be together.  That's not the way things are supposed to happen.  We were born to be opposites.  One light, one dark.  One good, one evil.  We are equal but forever separate, hands inextricably bound with words like honor and pride and loyalty.  I could make him want me for a little while, let him think he could change me to fit his life, but a year from now he'd wake up and look at me lying next to him in his bed and realize what I already know: we are enemies.  Permanently.  Inviolably.  
  
   
  
I still can't stop myself from trying, just this once.  I need a human touch; I ache for it so desperately that I am made of ivy and neon, blazing even as I cling to propriety.  With hands that should be trembling, but somehow aren't, I set aside my viola and reach up to unfasten my robe, letting it pool around my feet.  Mechanically, I fumble my sweater over my head, feeling my hair halo from the static electricity.  "Draw on me," I whisper, breath hot as teakettle steam.  
  
   
  
Harry's staring at me, staked to the ground.  I've frightened him, pushed too hard, too far, too fast.  Yes, good, I think.  *Run*.  I may be friendly now, but that could change in a heartbeat.  Tomorrow, I'll itch for a fight, and you will lose it.  I'll beat you down, make you bleed.  Get out while you can, quickly.  Escape before you're scarred too badly.  
  
   
  
His smile, when it comes, is brilliant and omniscient, a crescent moon in the morning sky.  He grabs a quill from my desk and shoves me into a chair, pulling up another so he can sprawl across from me.  Before he begins, he looks straight into my eyes - bold, cocky, baldly reckless - and says: "I don't spook easy, Malfoy."  Maybe you should, I want to say, but I hold my tongue as he traces geometric patterns across my chest and arms.  When he finishes, he looks up giddily, almost drunk with pleasure, and I want to pull his face to mine, plunder his mouth with my tongue, lick patterns of my own against his forehead.  He wouldn't stop me, not in this state.  
  
   
  
Instead, I gruffly order him to leave.  His face closes in on itself, irising shut like a day lily.  How can he have reached this age, faced the terrors he has, without learning to hide his emotions?  He stutters something that might be "good night," and practically flees the room.  My heart tries to run after him, but I force myself to walk over and close the door.  It's better this way; I can't let him get the wrong idea about us.  
  
   
  
I spend the next hour in front of the mirror, wishing someone would come in and ask me where I got these marks so that I could smile mysteriously and refuse to tell them. 


	10. Groping Blindly

Title:  Groping Blindly (Love Ridden 10)  
  
Author: Romie  
  
Archive:  anywhere.  In fact, I'd appreciate it.  Let me know if it's  
  
convenient.  
  
Rating:  PG-13  
  
Pairing:  prelude to Harry/Draco  
  
Spoilers:  none  
  
Disclaimers:  Rowling is God.  
  
Warnings:  Features a male/male romantic pairing.  Don't read if you don't like.  
  
Summary:  Harry ponders.  There's even (after several requests)  
  
more contemplation of the famous "let's draw on Draco!" scene.  
  
=============================================  
  
   
  
Well, it looks like at least one question is settled; I'm *definitely* attracted to Draco Malfoy.  God, I must have come off as such an idiot.  I mean, honestly; I break into his room, uninvited, and then I just stand there stuttering.  It's not even as though he was in any state of undress; by all rights, I should have been more flustered by our *last* conversation.  The one where he was in a towel.  
  
   
  
My only excuse is that I didn't know then what I know now.  It's true what Hermione says: knowledge is a powerful aphrodisiac.  This time, I was evaluating Draco as a potential lover, sizing him up as an ally instead of an opponent.  Unfortunately, this was complicated by his adamant efforts to scare me off.  
  
   
  
It's obvious that's what he's doing.  I'm chagrined to say it nearly worked before I realized his words, his taunts, are actually *dares*.  I read somewhere that most sarcasm is pure honesty hidden in the open.  By telling the truth in a bitter voice, you provide a wall of defense; you haven't denied anything, but the listener would be a fool to believe your confession.  
  
   
  
I'm not a fool, although of course you couldn't have known that from last night's behavior.  I'm not even sure why I went to see him; it wasn't intentional, yet my feet led me directly there.  I must have heard one of the teachers mention where he'd been placed; the information must have lodged in my subconscious.  Why else would I have walked to the teachers' wing, the place I was most likely to get caught for being out of bed?  
  
   
  
Once there, I knew that Draco was still awake from the off-key sound of string playing.  (No professor would be that awful.)  That doesn't excuse my blatantly illegal use of magic to enter his locked room.  If he'd called me on it, I could have gotten in a *lot* of trouble.  Why is it that I never think my actions through in advance?  I'm forever reacting, going back to analyze what came before instead of looking to the future.  It's a hand-to-mouth means of subsistence, but I can't seem to give it up.  I'm constantly amazed that things come together as they do; by all rules of probability, I should be dead in the bottom of a pit somewhere.  
  
   
  
Snape's looking at me sternly.  I ought to do something to disguise my complete lack of attention in his class, but taking notes - even *real* ones - is absolutely out of the question.  The idea of putting quill to parchment is too powerfully suggestive of. . .  
  
   
  
God, it was glorious.  I couldn't read his mind, but I could sure as hell map his skin.  I started just below his left collarbone, inking-in a corkscrewing serpent to guard the vulnerable hollow between breast and shoulder.  When he didn't object, I rested my free hand at his waist - if he'd asked, I would have said it was to steady him, although he was already perfectly still.  
  
   
  
I forced myself not to look up or down, to content myself with what I'd been offered.  With a hand steady from years of drafting experience, I made wildly forking tongues erupt from the serpent's mouth to caress the arsenic white of Draco's shoulder.  The lines webbed around and down his arm in sinuous curves, branching into flames, feathers, flowers - whatever I could invent.  I wonder what Draco would have done if I'd had the courage to follow the serpent's tongue with my own, blurring the neat lines into messy streaks and teasing the pale skin to redness. . .  
  
   
  
This is *not* the place to be thinking these thoughts.  If Snape wasn't suspicious before, he certainly is now; I'm practically vibrating in my seat.  Thankfully, he misattributes the cause, and asks that next time I use the W.C. *before* coming to class.  Even more surprisingly, he doesn't use the infraction as an excuse to take points from Gryffindor, instead permitting me to leave class and attend to my business.  He must have been badly shaken by yesterday's scene in the dining hall; I wonder whether it was his influence that got Draco his near-expulsion, or whether he was the one who worked to stop it.  
  
   
  
I find myself wandering the halls again, hoping I'll bump into Draco.  This is about as likely as finding a magical flea in the Forbidden Forest.  Not only does Hogwarts have miles upon miles of labyrinthine corridor, but the entire staff is actively working to keep Draco separate from the other students.  I don't even know what I'd do if I found him, (more of the brilliant Potter not-planning-ahead).  Probably rip his robes off to see if he still bears my marks.  See if my touch still traces his chest, closer to his skin than even his underclothes.  
  
   
  
This *has* to stop.  I haven't even. . . We're barely on speaking terms.  He has *no* right to obsess me so utterly; I don't even *like* him.  He's reprehensible and infuriating and cantankerous, and he seems to have set up a permanent residence in my head.  I'd love to think that he'll change, blossoming under my influence to become a real live Human Being; but I've learned from Sirius that when you try to alter others, it is only yourself that changes.  
  
   
  
I don't want to change.  Well, yes I do - there's that whole planning ahead thing, to begin with -- but I don't want to become more like him.  Wait - that's not true either.  I'd love to be more cultured, more poised, more elegant.  I'm saying this wrong.  
  
   
  
I don't want to become the sort of person who finds Draco's behavior acceptable.  I refuse to condone bigotry toward the non-magical, or snobbery for those of lesser means.  All the finer characteristics in creation are not enough to make up for that one glaring fault, that unthinking hatred.  As long as he feels that way, I cannot let myself care for him.  
  
   
  
Where does that leave me?  I can't accept Draco as he is; I can't expect him to change.  The reasonable, intelligent course of action is to forget about him; there will be other, healthier attractions in the future.  It should be easy - I don't even have to see him again.  
  
   
  
And when Dumbledore told me to stay out of the third floor corridor, I did as he asked.  And when he said that I couldn't go to Hogsmeade without a parental permission slip, I stayed quietly home.  And when I discovered that Hagrid had an illegal pet dragon, I turned him in to the proper authorities.  
  
   
  
Tell me again how I'm the smart one? 


	11. Sea of Holes

Title:  Sea of Holes (Love Ridden 11)  
  
Author: Romie  
  
Archive:  anywhere.  In fact, I'd appreciate it.  Let me know if it's  
  
convenient.  
  
Rating:  PG  
  
Pairing:  prelude to Harry/Draco  
  
Spoilers:  none  
  
Disclaimers:  Rowling is God.  Title stolen from Yellow Submarine.  Tom Stoppard reference.  
  
Warnings:  features a same-sex romantic pairing.  Get over it.  
  
Feedback: yes please, both on and off list  
  
Summary:  Draco's been left to himself, so he gets all morose and depressed.  This one's a bit short, but the next is probably longer, so there's a compensatory factor at work.  
  
=============================================  
  
When I was a child, the stars were my family.  I'd look up at the night sky to find my ancestors gazing back at me, winking their approval from the inky blackness.  They could see me through clouds, ceilings, daylight - and they liked what they saw.  No matter my actions, they condoned me, accepted me.  Loved me.  They understood when others didn't; I never had to be alone.  I was a Malfoy, and that meant something.  It's not a purity of blood; it's a sense of belonging.  A silk thread in God's lace collar.  In the end, no matter whether my life was a success or a failure, I would join them in the heavens to watch the next in line.  
  
   
  
I don't know whether that's true anymore.  I think I gave it all up when I decided to stay.  I'm not even sure why I did.  For the love of a boy who is too young to understand what love is, and too stupid to run away from me?  From my window, I can see him talking animatedly with his friends.  Same as always.  
  
   
  
Is it perverse of me to want him to be scarred?  For my mark to blaze across his countenance as surely as the Dark Lord's?  For people to gasp as he passes, the change profound as a cloudburst, obvious as a missing limb?  I have lost so much, and gotten so little in return.  Harry left his pattern on me last night, but I've hardly touched him.  Same as always.  
  
   
  
He hasn't told his friends yet; that much is clear.  I'm not surprised; he's never treated them very well, and they're too wrapped up in their own flirtations to call him on it.  If asked, he'd probably say he prefers to solve problems himself, not inconvenience others.  The truth is, he never learned how to trust people.  How to need them.  I've known him for almost seven years, and not once has he asked for someone's help.  He'll be so surprised when Death finds him, hooks a heavy iron breastplate under his ribs.  Perhaps I'll be foolish enough to try to save him.  
  
   
  
Why does he do this to me?  I've asked myself a thousand times, but I've never found the answer.  His disease coats my throat and skin, a molecular barrier between me and sanity.  Though I scrub until I'm raw and screaming, I can't erase his influence.  It binds me here with satin chains.  
  
   
  
He loves me.  I believe that - I have to.  Otherwise, how could he hurt me so badly?  If he was intentionally malicious, I could anticipate him, block him, cripple him.  I can fight my enemies.  His kindness is a weapon, his embrace a fist around my thorax.  Razorblades fly from his mouth and eyes, phasing through my cobbled shields to slice at the lies which hold me together.  
  
   
  
There must have been a moment, at the beginning, when I could have stopped this.  I can't find it, can't guess when the decision was made.  I remember meeting him; could I have said no?  Was there a time when I could run away without leaving myself behind?  Fate couldn't be so unkind as to give me no means of escape, to decide my destiny at age eleven.  
  
   
  
It's too late now.  I can only watch him as the ocean closes over my head, searching his eyes for one last glimpse of sky. 


	12. Your Move

Title:  Your Move (Love Ridden 12)  
  
Author: Romie  
  
E-mail:  romie@r...  
  
Archive:  anywhere.  In fact, I'd appreciate it.  Let me know if it's  
  
convenient.  
  
Rating:  G  
  
Pairing:  prelude to Harry/Draco.  
  
Spoilers:  none  
  
Disclaimers:  Rowling is God.  There's once sentence that's almost but not quite lifted from Trainspotting.  
  
Warnings:  this series features a same-sex romantic pairing.  
  
Feedback: yes please, both on and off list  
  
Summary:  Harry and Ron play chess  
  
Notes: Between part 11 and this, I wrote an interlude from Crabbe's point of view. It can be found at http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=444004  
  
=============================================  
  
   
  
All day, I've been trying to talk to Hermione.  I hadn't realized just how difficult it is to get her alone; she's inevitably in class, or tutoring Neville, or at the library.  It's queer: I think of her as omnipresent, but we actually spend very little time together now that our academic concentrations are in different subjects.  When I do see her, it's in the dining hall, or with Ron.  How odd that at the time I feel closest to her, I see her least.  
  
   
  
This makes things rather difficult.  I *need* to confide in someone, and Hermione's . . . sensible.  While Ron is my Best Friend, Hermione has always been my therapist.  She's ideally suited: she listens, takes mental notes, and offers well thought out solutions.  Thank God Ron and I went looking for her first year during the legendary "Troll Incident"; I can't imagine what life would be like now without her as a friend.  And I wish it was as easy to find her *now*; unfortunately, she dashed out a few hours ago, mumbling something about "project for Professor Sprout."  
  
   
  
So instead of unburdening my soul to her, I've spent the afternoon in the common room, playing wizard chess with Ron.  (And losing.  Badly.  It's a good thing we never play for money.  Well, never unless we've been drinking.  But that was really just twice, and I was going to give him that shirt anyway.)  At least it helps take my mind off things.  
  
   
  
I wish I could simply talk to Ron about it, but I'm too confused.  If I know what the problem is, I can rely on Ron to rush to my aid, no questions asked.  He might grumble a bit, but he trusts me to know what I can handle.  (And what I can't, which is probably more applicable to the Malfoy situation.)  But when I don't know what I want, he can be startlingly callous.  
  
   
  
Ron, you see, always knows what he wants.  There are a few major desires: he wants the Chudley Cannons to win the cup, he wants enough money that he'll never have to worry about it, and he wants for someone to love him best.  Ancillary are legion short-term wishes, like a new set of dress robes, decent marks in Transfiguration, and sausage links for breakfast.  Ron is very accomplished at avarice.  It's more of an art form than most people realize - it's a balance of goals and imagination.  It's drive and purpose and knowing who you are on a Saturday morning.  
  
   
  
Perhaps if I asked him, he'd teach me to want the right things.  The house in the country with the 2.5 children.  A challenging and rewarding job which fulfills my thirst for adventure while providing both stability and direction.  A shelf full of cookbooks, and a shed bursting with spades and hedge clippers.  
  
   
  
Wanting Draco is unhealthy, like eating an entire chocolate cake in one sitting.  One iced with cyanide.  It's an invitation to madness; the boy has emotional problems, intimacy issues, and a documented inability to relate to my friends.  I remind myself of this over and over again, running it through my head on an assembly line of excuses.  
  
   
  
Red queen to bishop six.  I'm doing even more horribly than usual - my mind is simply not on the game, and my pieces can sense it.  The king's pawn is particularly demoralized; he keeps trying to hit my rooks with bits of sesame seed.  
  
   
  
Why isn't Hermione back yet?  She'll explain it all away, I'm sure of it.  She'll tell me that my experience with the Dursleys led me to associate pain with family, leading me into abusive and/or neglectful relationships in later life.  Draco is simply a manifestation of the deep-seated conviction that I am undeserving of love.  He is attractive because I know he will hurt me; I have never reconciled the hatred I endured in the muggle world with my acclaim among wizards, resulting in repressed masochistic tendencies.  Furthermore, I want a relationship doomed to failure, because I am afraid success, (marriage, especially to a woman,) will turn me into Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia.  
  
   
  
It won't sound like psychobabble coming from her.  It won't be so sterile, so clinical.  It won't reduce me to an unfortunate statistic.  I'll feel comforted, knowing what the situation is.  Perhaps I'll remember a particularly nasty episode from my childhood, and cry a little.  Afterwards, it will seem as though I've solved something; everything will be clear again.  And Hermione will watch out for me, to make sure I don't stray.  
  
   
  
I'll be able to *believe* it when she says it, instead of feeling this violent need to prove I can make things work.  I won't point out the logic flaws; I won't question why these "tendencies" are just now surfacing.  I won't ask why I didn't think about Draco this way until he stopped fighting, which would seem to invalidate the "I want him to hurt me" argument.  
  
   
  
I'm in check again.  Not checkmate, which I'd almost welcome - I'm too proud to stop fighting before I'm roundly beaten, but it's tiring when it's so clear that I'm going to lose.  I want it to be over: all my ripostes and counterattacks are merely stalling tactics.  And yet I can't just end it, I can't just walk away, or play at less than my optimal skill.  Stupid sodding bastard.  
  
   
  
In this case, the best defense would be to sacrifice that seed-throwing pawn, but I've become rather fond of him.  At least he gets angry instead of just waiting to be crushed.  I move my knight to block, which surprises Ron.  He's now scanning the board, convinced that I'm trying a crafty and unorthodox strategy, leading him into a trap.  He can't understand why anyone would surrender his last knight simply to save one surly pawn.  
  
   
  
A few minutes later, the game is over.  The loss of my knight gave his bishop an opening, and within three turns, I'm in checkmate.  
  
   
  
The pawn survives. 


	13. Stripped

Title:  Stripped (Love Ridden 13)  
  
Author: Romie  
  
E-mail:  romie@r...  
  
Archive:  anywhere.  In fact, I'd appreciate it.  Let me know if it's convenient.  
  
Rating:  PG-13  
  
Pairing:  prelude to Harry/Draco.  
  
Spoilers:  none  
  
Disclaimers:  Rowling is God.  There's also some Shakespeare references.  
  
Warnings:  Slash.  If you can't take the same-sex pairing, stay out of the bedroom.  There's also some very violent imagery.  
  
Summary:  Draco receives distressing news  
  
=============================================  
  
   
  
They found my mother.  I can't . . . Earth's turned to Jupiter, hot and liquid beneath my feet, roiling gas clouds spiraling towards that aching rust spot of knowledge.  It's all I can do to stop from sinking, to brace my feet against the shifting whorls that  buckle under me, a micrometer from dissolution.  From disintegration.  
  
   
  
I can't get over the sheer *ordinariness* of her capture.  It's almost surreal; she ran to the corner newsstand and happened to run into an Auror - not even one on duty; he was taking his morning stroll.  This Auror coincidentally remembered her from a cocktail party *years* ago, back when he used to work with The Grenwich Illusionist's Theater, and nabbed her before she could even draw her wand.  
  
   
  
I don't know where she's being held - Dumbledore couldn't tell me that.  Maybe he just didn't have the information, but I suspect he simply doesn't trust me.  (Smart man.  Then again, he didn't expel me when he had the chance.  Unless he did it to keep an eye on me.  Who can tell what he thinks behind his smiles and gibberish?)  
  
   
  
I think he expected me to cry, or get angry.  Instead I am afraid, skeletal hands pressing between my shoulder blades, impelling me to the edge of iron- built cliffs.  Blood-warm spikes rivet my hands together in a mockery of prayer, finger-nailing white crescents into my knuckles.  (new moons.)  I let them stay locked, for otherwise they'd reach out to strangle.  (my own neck.  conventional wisdom says you let go when you pass out.  not if you do it right.)  
  
   
  
I'm terrified they'll take me to see her.  That she'll . . . ask for me.  I don't want to see her confined; she *hates* being shut in.  That's probably why she ran to the newsstand in the first place, just to get out of the house.  Or the fortress, or the palace, or wherever it is the Dark Lord is putting them up.  It's still a jail.  Homes are prisons, she used to say.  That's why we were always adding on.  
  
   
  
A pitiful excuse for not visiting - but then, it's not the real one.  The real one's worse.  (God, I'm such a coward, all bravura to the contrary.)  I don't want her to ask why I stayed.  She won't have believed it - not 'til she can see and touch me.  She won't have believed that I didn't follow her and my father.  She'll know - of course she'll know, how could she not? - but she'll have held on to a justification  She'll have convinced herself that something important was stopping me, a cordon of Aurors or a binding charm.  
  
   
  
Certainly not that her son betrayed her, betrayed everyone, for the love of a boy she detests.  A boy *he* detests.  A *boy*.  
  
   
  
I Hate Him.  
  
   
  
I hate him so much that it's a fist around my throat.  Nothing would please me more than to see him chained and begging, cowering at my whims.  
  
   
  
I Want His Soul.  I want to plunge my fingers into his chest and *pull*.  I want to weave the gossamer strands into a rope, and use it to strangle him.  
  
   
  
i can't  
  
   
  
All I can do is scrub at the marks on my chest until it's raw and bleeding.  As if somehow that makes it okay.  As if somehow that hides my attachment.  Hides the fact that He Owns Me.  (Ironic, isn't it?  Draco Malfoy someone's slave.  Someone who doesn't even care, who doesn't even fucking *notice*.  Who'd be disgusted if he did.)  
  
   
  
If I had my mouth, I would bite.  If I had my arm, I would strike.  I would laugh when I was happy and frown when I was angry instead of always *waiting* for the politic moment.  
  
   
  
the marks won't come off, even though I've shed a couple layers of skin.  rationally, i know they're not there, but when has rationality counted for anything worthwhile?  i can still feel them, fluorescent nets about my shoulders.  
  
   
  
She'll know.  She always knows.  She built me, after all.  Whatever I do, it doesn't matter, which is why I can't ever see her again.  
  
   
  
o god.  she'll figure it out anyway.  when i refuse to see her.  She'll know that I'm on their side (i'M NOT on THeirSiDe!), that I must have defected.  Why would a son refuse to visit his mother for any reason other than shame?  
  
   
  
I AM ASHAMED.  I AM A SHAMEFUL COWARD.  
  
   
  
Why did she have to go to the newsstand?  Surely, the Dark Lord's influence is sufficient to procure a newspaper.  Surely, there are house elves and minions whose job it is to run those kinds of errands.  There was no reason for her to go, to be captured so *stupidly*.  
  
   
  
whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy  
  
   
  
I'm trapped in a labyrinth of ifs, perhapses climbing up the walls like creepers.  It's madness, broken harlequins in deaths-head masks.  (maybe they were treating her badly, and she wanted to be caught.  maybe she wanted to find out about me; she wouldn't have trusted anyone else to tell her the truth.  this is all my fault!)  
  
   
  
NO.  That way lies insanity.  I'm going to sit here in my room, nice and calm.  I'm going to sit here and sip tea and read my history book and pretend I'm not bleeding from a thousand tiny abrasions (self-made).  It's easy.  I just have to imagine I'm someone else, something I do frequently.  
  
   
  
I'll pretend I'm Hermione Granger.  She'd never have to worry about this kind of thing - her parents are muggles.  How droll.  Yes, Granger.  I'll read and read and read and read until I can't remember the rest of the world.  
  
   
  
Maybe if I try hard enough, Draco Malfoy will never come back.  (a shocking loss to the world, but it would certainly make things easier)  
  
   
  
When do things get simple again? 


	14. Balk

Title:  Balk (Love Ridden 14)  
  
Author: Romie  
  
Archive:  anywhere.  In fact, I'd appreciate it.  Let me know if it's convenient.  
  
Rating:  PG  
  
Pairing:  prelude to Harry/Draco.  
  
Spoilers:  none  
  
Disclaimers:  Rowling is God.  
  
Warnings:  This series features non-explicit same-sex romantic interaction.  If it's not your thing, don't read it.  You have been warned.  
  
Summary: Harry tries to do right by Draco, which, as usual, turns out to be a bad thing.   
  
Note: Harry is on a bit of an adrenaline kick at the time of narration, for reasons that should be clear from the first two paragraphs.  This makes him considerably less focused than usual, because he's thinking *very* quickly; this also makes him even more postmodern than he has been previously.  So if he's less introspective than you've come to expect, that's why.  He should have calmed down by the next post, or even the end of this one.  Don't get me wrong, though - he's still calm, reasonable Harry.  He just acts a little odd in places.   
  
=========================  
  
   
  
Madam Pomfrey says that my jaw is only fractured and it should re-knit itself by tomorrow morning.  Nevertheless, it feels as though a giant vibrating church bell has replaced my chin, tolling out warning messages enthusiastically enough to rattle my teeth.  And Pomfrey flatly refuses to do anything for the pain.  Despite my protestations to the contrary, she knows that I've been fighting; she'd have to be blind not to, what with the articulate imprint of knuckles on my mandible.  
  
   
  
It's her policy, you see, never to give painkillers for combat-related injuries.  The theory is that the pain acts as a deterrent to brawling, and I must admit that I have no desire to ever fight again (at least until I have my own private array of pharmaceuticals and healing charms).  Not that I was fighting *this* time; I was actually trying strenuously *not* to.  
  
   
  
I'm no good at this.  
  
   
  
Hermione didn't get back last night until almost eleven o'clock, but she was alert and full of news.  (You can always tell when she's excited, because she starts whispering.  I've never figured out whether it's because she'd be shouting otherwise, or because she equates subterfuge with exhilaration.  I doubt she even notices she does it; as incisive as she is when watching others' psyches, she pays very little attention to her own.)  
  
   
  
"They've got Narcissa Malfoy," she said (in exactly those words - and she ordinarily uses such proper English), a broad smile breaking over her face.  I glanced over at Ron to find that he was grinning too, and felt my own mouth quirking up at the corners.  We stood there like a bunch of beaming idiots until we dissolved into great, gasping peals of laughter from just looking at each other.  
  
   
  
This may seem like an overreaction.  But, you see, where you find Narcissa Malfoy, you find Lucius Malfoy.  And where you find Lucius Malfoy, you find Voldemort.  So what Hermione was saying was "we have Voldemort."  Certainly, it may take days or even months, but we're *close*.  The Ministry has a source, and a place to start looking, which is more than they've had in a year.  Voldemort might even be caught before we graduate.  
  
   
  
(If you worry that my euphoria is talking for me, it's a valid concern.  Rest assured that I know that Voldemort is very difficult to kill, or to stop.  Of All People, I Know That Best.  But this. . .  We can pursue, we can chase, we can strike instead of simply waiting for him to make a move.  Instead of reacting, we are reborn.  It's an amazing feeling, as though your heart is dancing instead of merely beating.  As though with each breath you swallow supernovas.)  
  
   
  
In my giddiness, I didn't realize that there was one person who would Not be celebrating;  that didn't occur to me until several hours later, lying stiffly across my bed, trying to force my body to sleep.  (Either self- hypnosis is a sham, or I'm no damn good at it.  Most likely the latter.)  No, for the time, my elation was undiluted, and the three of us danced about like fools at a May Day picnic.  Lord, we must have looked a sight.  Without music, we each moved to different rhythms.  And the only one of us who's any good is Hermione, who had a book under her arm.  
  
   
  
(Ron's always worried about jabbing people with his elbows - his height, you see - so he keeps his arms stiffly at his sides.  It's *highly* comical, because his feet skip quickly and nimbly, his head turns from side to side . . . and his arms stay rigid, like splints against his torso.  Come to think of it, it's a bit like Irish step-dancing.  And of course . . . he's . . . Irish. . . .  I am *such* an idiot sometimes.  God, how many years has he been my friend?  And I just now picked up on that. It's funny how you don't realize what you know about a person until you try to explain them to someone else.  Ron's not clumsy at *all*; he does that *deliberately* because it's part of his *style*.  He's probably been *trained* in it.  Lord.)  
  
   
  
(My dancing, on the other hand, is quite the opposite.  No control whatsoever, just energetic flailing.  Hermione tried to teach me to dance *properly* a few years back, but it was thoroughly hopeless.  I'm a bad dancer.  I accept it.  So instead of even *attempting* to do what looks good, I go with what seems fun.   It can be freeing to realize you're incurably bad at something, because then you don't have to worry about it anymore - in my case, I can do what I want to do, and enjoy it, and not bother with wondering whether anyone else likes it. This tends to involve a lot of jumping up and down.  Good thing my glasses are enchanted so they won't accidentally fall off (an absolute *necessity* for a spectacled seeker).)  
  
   
  
(Before you get a *completely* disdainful opinion of me, let me say that it's better than being a wallflower.  And I'm not actually too terrible as a dance *partner*, because I'm very enthusiastic about throwing people for spins and dips.  Moreover, it encourages people who are uninterested in all the serious stuff that always seems to accompany asking someone to dance - I hate that nonsense.  I don't know what I'll do if I'm ever asked to a truly formal event - not a Hogwarts affair, but, I dunno, a wedding or something.)  
  
   
  
I am so unfocused right now.  It's the smell of iodine, I suspect.  Pomfrey keeps it around even though it's muggle, because, well, it *works*.  Quickly and efficiently.  But it makes me queasy whenever I'm in this corner of the medical wing.  I hate the smell of iodine.  It's what the nurse at my elementary school would put on my cuts whenever Dudley felt the need to rough me up a bit.  Of course, she never thought to phone the headmaster, or child services, or to comment on all the *other* injuries that appeared when she rang the Dursleys the first time it happened.  
  
   
  
I'm not bitter.  
  
   
  
Really, I'm not.  Bitter, that is.  I suppose she had her reasons, and one cannot change the past.  But iodine still makes me queasy, bringing back that feeling of utter helplessness, the memories of sitting as a small boy on a too-large chair in an empty room with peeling yellow linoleum and a nurse who reeked of nicotine and too little pay.  Weak sodium lamps overhead washed the walls with sickly light, and the woven orange curtains were *always* closed over grimy windows that were soldered shut.  The backs of my legs stuck to the vinyl, the heavy-metal tang of blood clung to the back of my tongue, and I felt as though I couldn't *breathe* the still, stale air, but I knew that if I one of my cuts ever got infected, the Dursleys wouldn't take me to the doctor until it got so bad that I could lose a limb.  Actually, they might have enjoyed that.  It would have allowed them to collect Disability from the government, none of which I'd ever see.  
  
   
  
Stop it, Harry.  You're not there any more, and will never have to go back unless you want to.  (The circumstances of which I can't imagine.)  
  
   
  
Where was I?  
  
   
  
Right.  Happiness.  Capering in the common room with my best friends.  
  
   
  
There's not much more to that story, I'm afraid.  We kept on for a quarter of an hour, then disbanded to go to bed - class in the morning, after all.  I, of course, couldn't sleep.  I tried for a couple of hours, but my heart wasn't in it.  I put it up to a combination of being keyed up from the dancing, and staying awake too late the night before.  
  
   
  
And that's when I realized about Draco.  Narcissa's Draco's mum.  That he's a racist wanker and a patronizing bully didn't negate the reality that his *mother* was probably being interrogated, (and likely tortured,) that very moment, something no one should have to experience.  I know what it's like to worry for Sirius, who I'm used to thinking of as endangered, and who is secure in his hiding place.  What must the difference be for Draco?  And he was alone, cloistered from anyone who could comfort or even distract him.  One o'clock in the morning, but if I was up, he surely must be.  (Mirror logic, I know, but it did prove true.)  
  
   
  
(I'm going to shift tenses now.  Don't let it confuse you - it just makes things easier.  This all still takes place last night.)  
  
   
  
I run to his room, terry-cloth robe billowing out behind me, bare feet slapping against the flagstones.  I remember to knock this time, tapping an irregular rhythm as I heave in swallows of oxygen and habitually shove my hair back.  A long pause with no answer - he must've fallen asleep with the light on.  When I hear a quiet "enter," I've already turned away to try again tomorrow.  
  
   
  
I push the door open almost gingerly.  It seems impossibly heavier than it was before - a subconscious reluctance on my part, I suppose.  Either out of laziness or of fear, I sidle through the narrow half opening, edging warily into the room.  Later, I will realize that I am using the door as a shield for as long as possible; for now, I don't analyze it.  
  
   
  
I don't know what I expect from Draco; I was so alarmed (so guilty) that it didn't occur to me to wonder about his reaction during my flight down the hall.  Only now that I'm half inside, now that I'm irrevocably committed, do I begin to speculate.  He could be crying; he could be violent.  I don't know which prospect is more terrifying.  
  
   
  
I completely fail to anticipate what I witness.  Draco reclines cross- legged on the floor, coolly reading _Hogwarts, A History_ as he sips from a bone china teacup.  "What the hell do you want, Potter?" he demands, voice clipped.  I realize for the first time how carefully he enunciates, 't's sputtering like gunfire, 'h's gusting like wind on the open moor.  Finally, I understand his usual insistence on 'Potter' instead of 'Harry'; it's more than just a method of distancing me.  'Potter' is a name that can be growled, spat, disparaged, uttered with venom and crushed under a heel.  And he has had so much practice.  
  
   
  
"I came to see how you were," I reply, voice miraculously clear and steady, refusing to rise to his bait.  I came here for honorable reasons; if he feels the need to strike out at me, so be it.  I refuse to hurt him back.  
  
   
  
"How noble," he simpers sarcastically.  I've been working so hard to stop regarding him as my enemy that I forgot what a total bastard he can be.  Yes, a trapped animal only lashes out because of pain and fear, but the handler still gets bitten.  
  
   
  
He continues: "what are you pitying me for *this* time?"  My stomach clenches into a walnut knot.  Could he somehow not know?  Is it possible that no one's told him?  Certainly *Dumbledore* would have come as soon as he heard, and there's no way the information reached Hermione before the headmaster.  Perhaps Draco's bravado is just denial.  Yes.  He has to know.  
  
   
  
But, God, what if he doesn't?  What if somehow, in their excitement, everyone forgot about him, and he's been sitting calmly in his room, innocent of the information I've had for hours (i should have come sooner)?  I wasn't prepared for this.  I'm not prepared for it anyway, but I thought I at least had a list of supplies.  It's like that nightmare in which you find out you're late for an exam you didn't know you had.  Now imagine that you didn't even know you took the class.  That you didn't even know that the subject existed.  Or the language the teacher is speaking.  
  
   
  
How do you ask whether a boy knows that his criminal mother has been apprehended, that she's probably being interrogated as you speak?  How do you tell your rival that you're sorry without sounding like a gloating, condescending, ingenuine prick?  You don't.  Not without turning it into a challenge.  Especially when dealing with a boy such as this, one so accustomed to insult and enmity.  I shouldn't have come.  
  
   
  
And how could I possibly stay away?  It suddenly strikes me how deeply *wrong* it is that I'm standing and he's sitting.  By sheer elevation, I'm involuntarily victimizing him, looming ominously.  Yet to take a seat without invitation would require a markedly greater familiarity than we share; any such action on my part would be a usurpation of his control.  (Does he have any idea that I'm as trapped in this as he is?)  
  
   
  
"Draco," I begin, blundering ahead as best I can.  He cuts me off immediately, "don't" hissing out between clenched teeth, slim fingers tightening around the teacup handle.  He looks up at me, staring me down, and I see it.  No matter how much of a show he puts on, his eyes never hide any of what he feels.  It's funny that his favorite offensive tactic is to look me straight in the eyes; it's lost him more fights than he knows.  Oh yes, he *knows*.  And he is *angry*.  I am the prince of fools.  
  
   
  
"I'm sorry," I say, and I mean that I'm sorry I came, sorry for presuming, sorry for putting him in this position.  I recognize my mistake when spots of high color flare across his cheekbones; he thinks we're having a profoundly different conversation.  
  
   
  
He flings his cup down so forcibly that shrapnel scatters as far as the fireplace.  I am stunned; I've never known Draco to use physical violence of any kind.  Too inelegant.  Tiny droplets of blood well up on his arm where miniscule china fragments have impacted; he doesn't seem to notice.  I try desperately to backpedal, to erase those two stupid words, but they underscore the air between us and the floor between our feet.  So many layers to such a basic phrase; it was a code, a cipher that I'd hoped would convey the complexity of the feelings which brought me here.  I didn't realize that he lacked the key to break it.  
  
   
  
"I didn't mean-"  
  
   
  
"Shut.  Up."  Although he doesn't raise his voice even a decibel, his tone employs the full weight of command, and my mouth closes almost reflexively.  He returns to his reading as though nothing has happened, leaving me standing there helplessly.  I can't leave; I can't stay.  I feel impossibly awkward, more self-conscious than I've been since early puberty.  I wait for an indeterminate length of time, simply watching him read.  He looks genuinely interested, but perhaps that's just his way of proving how unimportant to him I am.  
  
   
  
Finally, *finally*, he seems to reach a stopping place, and snaps the book shut with one hand.  With long-limbed grace, he rises; it is as though the law of gravity does not apply to him.  He can stand without needing to push himself up, without even needing to uncross his legs; he simply . . . elevates.  He slinks over to me, blatantly invading my personal space.  I could step back, but I don't.  I have to show that I trust him, that he's in charge.  (God help us all.)  
  
   
  
Smoothly, he instructs me to close my mouth, although it is already closed.  He adds that my teeth should be together, not just my lips.  Furthermore, he instructs me to place the tip of my tongue at the highest point of my palate.  I do so.  
  
   
  
I don't even see the windup; I just feel the impact, staggering back several meters.  Shooting pain networks through my jaw, and I know with a certainty that it would have been dislocated if Draco hadn't told me how to position my mouth before he struck.  He turns on his heels and stalks to his bed, yanking the curtains closed behind him.  The message is clear: this audience is *over*.  I leave, cradling my mouth in one hand.  
  
   
  
Well, that's the story.  I did the sorts of things one usually does - got some ice from the kitchens, grabbed a book from the library.  Pomfrey arrives at 5:00, so it was only three hours I had to wait.  
  
   
  
Even with those three hours to think about it, I have no idea what just happened. 


	15. Dissonance

Title:  Dissonance (Love Ridden 15)  
  
Author: Romie  
  
Archive:  anywhere.  In fact, I'd appreciate it.  Let me know if it's convenient.  
  
Rating:  PG  
  
Pairing:  prelude to Harry/Draco.  
  
Spoilers:  none  
  
Disclaimers:  Rowling is God.  
  
Warnings:  This series features a same-sex romantic pairing in inexplicit situations.  If this isn't your cup of tea, then go make yourself some cocoa.  
  
Summary: Harry tries again to apologize.  
  
=========================  
  
   
  
Whenever Dudley was upset about something, Aunt Petunia would buy him a new toy.  It was generally expensive, often redundant, and rarely appreciated.  Even though it was never her fault that he was angry, and even though he was never placated by her offerings, (he far preferred breaking them into small pieces,) she persisted.  I think she equated gifts with love, and perhaps had some romantic idea that love fixes all.  
  
   
  
(It's likely that I'm giving her too much credit, but she *is* the closest thing I have to my mum.  That's not to say that I think of her as my mother, but rather that she is my mother's sister and therefore my only solid reference point.  Since I can't imagine that my mother was anything like Aunt Petunia, I've gotten into the habit of assigning Petunia depths which are not strictly in evidence.  It occasionally reaches the point where I have her painted as an artistic soul trapped in a repressive marriage.  Then I talk to her again and remember that she's fairly horrible.)  
  
   
  
I promised myself that when I had children, I would never do the same, would never try to buy their affection with *things*.  If they were irate, we'd discuss it calmly and rationally - or *not* calmly, and *not* rationally, but at least with words and actions instead of objects.  I guess I haven't technically broken that promise, since I don't have any kids, but what I'm doing now skirts dangerously close.  I'm sitting in Draco's room, on Draco's bed, trying to charm the tasseled drapes so that they'll dance whenever he plays music.  
  
   
  
(This is greatly complicated by the fact that I'm asleep on my feet; after Pomfrey was done with me this morning, I had a full load of classes.  No chance to catch a nap until just now - and instead, I'm here in Draco's room because I knew he wouldn't be here and I had to take the opportunity when I could.  (He's doing potions with Snape - the one class they can't hold here in his room.  Too much equipment to transport; too many protective spells on the lab that would have to be transferred.))  
  
   
  
(There's a word for what you are, Potter, and that word is "stalker.")  
  
   
  
It's a stupid gift, and I know that.  Silly.  But that's almost the point.  Any *thing* that Draco wants, he has enough money to buy on his own.  Any enchantment he wants, he has the skill to enact.  All I can offer him is laughter - which I suspect is what he needs most anyway.  I wish I could just talk to him, could offer my sympathy.  But it's obvious from the pain in my jaw that we are incapable of communicating on the level we need to.  I'd say we speak two different languages, but I suspect it goes beyond that - I suspect that we're two different *species*.  
  
   
  
(When you approach a human with your palms held out from your sides, the message is clear: you are holding no weapons.  Approach an animal with the same posture, and you're making yourself appear larger, more threatening.  In every single human culture, a smile is a gesture of friendship and goodwill; to an ape, you are showing your willingness to bite.  Blowing in a horse's nostrils gives him your scent, reassuring him; do the same to a cat, and you're hissing.)  
  
   
  
God, I'm exhausted.  It's not just the lack of sleep over the past few nights, although that certainly doesn't help.  It's the constant high level of careening emotions, more stressful than even the triwizard tournament.  Worries heaped upon worries, overlapped and intertangled and without promise of respite.  On a macro level, I have the same problems everyone else does: Voldemort, exams, the rapid approach of graduation.  On a micro level, I have these feelings for Draco that I didn't want, didn't plan for, and don't know for certain how to deal with.  That I still haven't told my best friends about.  
  
   
  
All of that's not so bad.  But now, with the capture of Narcissa. . .  The situation is completely bipolar - in Draco's room, in his world, it's a cause for fear and sorrow; out in the halls of Hogwarts, it's a decadent party.  I can't reconcile the jarring dissonance.  It's as though I'm a yew bow, and an indecisive archer keeps pulling at my strings, sawing back and forth, bending me at top and bottom until I arc so far I fear I'll snap.  My neck is so tense that it's an effort just to look sideways.  
  
   
  
My spell just failed for the. . . Damn, I don't even know how many times I've tried.  Lost count.  I should probably stop after a few more attempts, as Draco should be back soon and I'd rather be well away by the time he returns.  It's frustrating, because this is an *easy* spell, and I have a knack for charms; I have trouble accepting that I'm presently inept.  
  
   
  
I stand and run through a few quidditch stretches, trying to loosen my muscles, trying to free up the blood flow to my brain, trying most of all to stay *awake*.  And that's when I see it peeking out from under the edge of the bed, almost hidden by the drapes.  It's a small, pale crescent of wood, delicate as a lady's hair comb, but without the teeth to hold it steady.  I can't place it, but a lingering familiarity keeps me fixated; I *know* this fragment, this holy relic, this mona lisa carving.  I turn it over and over again in the palm of my hand, feeling the smooth curves, fingering the petite holes.  I feel an inordinate need to protect it, to hold it close and keep it safe.  This mystery should be cradled close.  Treasured.  Loved.  
  
   
  
(I apologize.  When I'm this sleepy, I get overly sentimental.  Well, that or testy - the odds are about the same.)  
  
   
  
Back to charming.  Three more tries, and then I'm out of here whether it works or not.  Too dangerous to stay, and I *have* to rest.  I sit back down - determined; focused; alert.  I restart the complex patterns, wand slicing and interlacing in fluid lines, dancing in the rhythm I want the tassels to mimic.  
  
   
  
All the time, I clutch the sliver in my right hand, holding it more tightly than even the wand. 


	16. Glove Anaesthesia

Title: Glove Anaesthesia (Love Ridden 16)  
  
Author: Romie  
  
Archive: Anywhere.  I'd appreciate an e-mail so that I can visit your site if I haven't seen it yet.  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Pairing: Harry/Draco  
  
Spoilers: None  
  
Disclaimers: not mine.  Rowling's.  That said, anybody's pretty much  
  
free to steal from anything I've done, as long is it generates  
  
something cool.  
  
Warning: Features same-gender romantic interaction.  Don't read if you can't handle it.  
  
Summary: The conclusion of the Love Ridden series.  Draco's POV.  
  
=====================================  
  
   
  
Flecks of purple twirl within translucent gemtones, an amorphous galaxy glittering under my hands, filling my cauldron with delicate blue.  Trompe l'oeil makes it touchable but impossibly far away, nattering firebugs calling for my consumption.  I want to follow them, to stop this fight with gravity and embrace the depths.  To split the room with silent screaming, particles streaming in spiraling spitfires.  
  
   
  
It is a seductively beautiful potion.  It is not, however, the potion I intended to make.  A proper Solaris elixir is opaque orange and smells like charcoal.  When dabbed on the tongue, it calls down the songbirds; when smeared on the eyelids, it banishes dark.  
  
   
  
I broke my viola.  Smashed it to ragged splinters while looking for its secrets.  Peeled the lacquer away, split the grain.  Plumbed with my thumbnails, probing the deepest recesses, admitting light to the hidden compartments.  Even in expiration, it frustrated, biting my hands in flat refusal, unwilling to show its music.  Withholding against hysterical interrogations, unmoved by my furor.  
  
   
  
I simply could not stand to look at it anymore.  Mocking me from the corner, cheeks a garish red.  Leering tone holes bisected by bars of silvered nylon - an infernal tease of antonymous signals.  Tuning pegs canted in jocular curls, curving devil's thorns that masquerade as crowns.  (How could I hope to create when my only skill is destruction?)  
  
   
  
It was a stupid, pointless, theatrical gesture - I acknowledge that.  Theatrical because of the satisfying gunshot snap when the bridge popped off, the firework of shattering fingerboard, the plummeting moans of stretched strings shuddering loose.  Pointless because no one but me will ever notice it is gone.  Stupid because now, yet again, I have nothing to distract me from my morose musings once I revisit my room.  
  
   
  
Snape has not yet caught on to the fact that I am sabotaging my potion.  Stalling.  Or maybe he has - maybe he is pretending, too.  
  
   
  
I return to powdered beetle's wings, avoiding the lyssomer paste until the last possible moment.  (I do not like to get my hands dirty.)  So I shuffle the poultice, pretend to search for flaws until Snape stops me.  Says I should be getting back now.  
  
   
  
He walks me down back hallways and shifting staircases, the journey long rather than short.  I suppose I should be thankful for the delay, but it just prolongs the tension.  Gaping depression prevents my enjoyment of these clandestine corridors, or amusement in my sequestration.  
  
   
  
Finally, he leaves me at my door.  I ask him whether he thinks it is safe to trust my recognizance, but I cannot muster a proper sneer.  Aloof and sallow, he mutters something about "for my own protection."  I stare him down until he turns the corner.  
  
   
  
And that is why I am alone when I discover the ubiquitous Harry Potter.  I suppose I did not properly disabuse him of the notion that we are friends - that, or he has come back to duel properly.  
  
   
  
He looks older when he sleeps, lips set in an uneasy 'o'.  His glasses hang askew across the slope of his nose, one earpiece jutting loose against the ether.  I remove them to better see the lines around his eyes.  A boy this young should not have wrinkles, but an unmistakable crease furrows his eyebrows and another traces the side of his mouth.  His skin is so pale - paler even than when he wakes.  Or maybe it only seems so against the shadow of a bruise.  
  
   
  
I should not be watching him.  I should wake him roughly, jolt him into consciousness, order him to leave and hurt him until he knows not to come back.  Then again, this is Harry Potter; I imagine he stops to look at train wrecks, too.  
  
   
  
Instead, I take quiet pleasure in seeing him thus unguarded.  He has entered My sanctum, so I take the time to observe His.  It is not a pleasurable one, from what I gather; his rest is less than placid.  In a moment of forethought, I disarm him, placing the wand beside his glasses.  
  
   
  
It is only then that I realize the wand is not the thing he was protecting.  The wand is not the thing he was cradling close to his chest, tightly bound between fingers and palm.  With infinite patience, I coax the hand open, freezing whenever he stirs and moving only when he is quiet.  Release is not a thing you can force - it must be given incrementally, embraced and recognized as it occurs.  Finally, his fingers part enough to reveal their treasure.  
  
   
  
It rests against his love line, nestled in the furrow there and buttressed with his thumb.  I almost laugh at the ironies of chance.  Fortune must be in love; there is no other reason she would delight so much in baiting me.  
  
   
  
His hand - his right hand, his future - holds the bridge.  The heart of the viola.  The brace which turns the strings' vibration to notes that resonate.  The link that turns trembling to music.  
  
   
  
I raise my head to find he has awoken - my fingers must have clenched without my notice.  He regards me with sleep-shod eyes, face lax and features soft.  For a moment, he looks befuddled - uncertain of where he is or why I am watching him.  He blinks, and portcullises slip into place; they have not closed yet, but the awareness is there.  He blinks again, and they are gone once more.  He is completely open, completely unafraid.  Several minutes pass before we speak, and I am thankful for it.  Words have always been our weakness, the barrier to comprehension.  
  
   
  
"You will leave me," I finally say, and he will.  Constancy is not a cloak he wears well; his pursuit of me confirms his distaste for routine.  Somehow, he understands what I am telling him, the warning and the omen tempered by a longing that once revolted me but which I hardly notice now.  
  
   
  
"You haven't given me the chance to arrive," he answers, regret elongating the syllables just enough that it is not a challenge.  Instead, it is a eulogy.  He knows he's lost - finally, permanently.  If he stays, he is mine.  If he goes, he is not the soul he believes himself to be.  He thinks he might be in love with me, but he does not know.  He wants to find out; he fears what he seeks.  He is stunning in his indecision; confusion has stripped his usual confidence.  
  
   
  
I regret putting him in this position.  It surprises me to make that realization; I take no joy in what I have done.  Such sorrow should never shade those features, no matter how beautiful; such tension should never break that lethargy.  "Go back to sleep," I say, embarrassed, and I withdraw.  
  
   
  
Or try to.  Even half asleep and half blind, he is a Seeker, and he catches my wrist easily, gripping more securely than any handcuff.  "Please," he whispers, and I expect him to continue, but he does not - just leaves the plea hanging in the air.  He does not know what he is asking for.  This is the first time he has comprehended that.  
  
   
  
"You will leave me," I say again, only this time it is an order, the 'alone' implied as I glance at my captured wrist.  
  
   
  
"I'm sorry," he apologizes, releasing my wrist immediately.  He has the grace to blush as he stands, not bothering to look for his wand or his glasses, but checking for the remnant of my broken instrument.  He walks briskly to the door - trying, I surmise, to distance himself from his one great failure.  
  
   
  
"Harry -" stops at the door, turning his head only a fraction, but enough that I can see his discomfort.  He tries to obscure it, but his face is never this blank; he has done his job so well that I am instantly suspicious.  I accept the possibility that he is merely exhausted -- hand braced wearily against the doorframe and feet shuffling without correction.  He looks like a grapevine deprived of its trellis, the tilted windmills of his eyes still and ragged.  
  
   
  
"Harry."  I say.  "Come back to bed."  
  
   
  
Trite, I know; but I suppose this is how romance novels close.  
  
   
  
Not that this is the end of the story - we have never even kissed, let alone made our peace.  He has not told his friends; he knows no word for his emotions besides "confusing".  I am still the pariah of Hogwarts; my mother is still in captivity, and I am not yet convinced that he will not desert me tomorrow, or the day after, or the year after.  Whether I will reattempt the viola is a mystery.  
  
   
  
In my experience, nothing ever concludes completely - there will always be 'after's, even in death.  And so I will rest here, for while it is not The ending, it is at least An ending, and a relatively happy one, despite its flaws and my misgivings.  Curling against the retiring scaffold of Harry's back, I lay my head against his shoulder, (MY shoulder,) and drift slowly into slumber. 


End file.
